Why Were Fruit-flavored Vapes a White House Priority?

Calley Means says lobbying and a midterm-election argument made approval of fruit-flavored vapes a priority for the White House officials he dealt with. He describes James Blair as treating the issue as more urgent than other health-policy proposals and arguing that young men wanted access to flavored products.

In his account, Marty Makary resisted pressure to relax the approval process, and Heidi Overton advanced a policy easing standards after Makary was fired. Means says the policy drew a lawsuit pointing to requirements for evidence about harm to children. He also says he has heard that Blair took money from the vaping industry, but explicitly says he cannot substantiate that allegation. The account should not turn that acknowledged hearsay into a finding about payments or claim that Makary was fired for a reason the passage does not establish.