The Food and Drug Administration has ordered Juul to stop selling its e-cigarette products and remove them from store shelves, citing a lack of data and evidence to assess their potential health risks.
Under the FDA order, Juul must stop selling and distributing its e-cigarette device, along with four types of Juul pods, which come in Virginia tobacco and menthol flavors.
The order does not prevent consumers from possessing or using Juul products.
So far, the FDA has not found evidence that the e-cigarettes or pods pose an immediate health threat. However, the agency said there was “insufficient and conflicting data” about the products’ toxicity and about “potentially harmful chemicals leaching from the company’s proprietary e-liquid pods.”
“The FDA is tasked with ensuring that tobacco products sold in this country meet the standard set by the law, but the responsibility to demonstrate that a product meets those standards ultimately falls on the shoulders of the company,” Michele Mital, acting director of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products, said in a statement.
“As with all manufacturers, Juul had the opportunity to provide evidence demonstrating that the marketing of their products meets these standards,” she added. “However, the company did not provide that evidence and instead left us with significant questions.”
Juul did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
This is a developing story.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
