The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) plans to speed up approvals for new vapes, Reuters reported on September 23, 2026, even though the agency warned in March that sweet flavors draw in teenagers.
The plan would loosen the same strict review that helped drive teen vaping down to a 10-year low, setting a public health agency against its own warnings.
Citing The Wall Street Journal, Reuters said the FDA could ease required science studies and shorten review times.
The agency may also revisit a 2021 rule that lists what a company must submit before it can sell a new tobacco product.
Reuters could not confirm the plan at the time, and the FDA did not answer a request for comment.
The flavor warning came in March 2026, when the FDA issued its first guidance on flavors and said fruit, candy, and dessert flavors tend to appeal to teenagers.
Two months later, on May 5, 2026, the same agency cleared fruit flavors for e-cigarettes for the first time.
Glas, a small Los Angeles vape maker, won permission to sell pods in mango, blueberry, and two menthol flavors.
The FDA said the pods target only adult smokers who want to quit or cut back, and it called the decision neither an approval nor an endorsement.
The decision broke with years of strict policy under President Joe Biden, whose FDA rejected more than a million applications for candy and fruit flavors.
FDA figures show the number of US teens who vape fell from more than 6 million in 2019 to about 1.4 million in 2025.
Senator Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois, seized on that reversal in a May 20, 2026, letter that urged Health Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. to resist the looser rules.
Under a long-standing requirement, makers must prove a product benefits public health before selling it, yet the FDA now lets unapproved vapes stay on shelves before its scientists finish reviewing them.
Durbin called the decisions "short-sighted" and said they "benefit Big Tobacco at the expense of our nation's children."
A Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson countered that only certain products would qualify and that the flavored pods carry technology meant to block young users.
Medical research, meanwhile, supports both sides of the dispute.
A review by Britain's children's doctors, which The Guardian reported on August 20, 2026, linked youth vaping to coughing, wheezing, and asthma attacks.
Drawing on 81 studies, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health also found evidence that vaping can lead young people to cigarettes.
Will Carroll, a co-author of the review, warned against treating vaping as a harmless part of growing up.
Yet a September 11, 2026, Cochrane review, which pools results from medical trials, found that nicotine vapes beat patches and gum at helping adults quit smoking.
Across 80 trials, nicotine vapes produced about four more successful quitters per 100 people than patches or gum did.
Each extra quitter counts, since smoking kills more than seven million people a year, according to the World Health Organization.
Kush Desai, a White House spokesman, said in a statement to Reuters reporters in May, "The only guiding factor behind the Trump administration's health policymaking is Gold Standard Science."
But days before tobacco executives lobbied President Donald Trump in May, Reynolds American, part of British American Tobacco, gave $5 million to the pro-Trump political group MAGA Inc.
Soon after, the FDA eased its sales rule, and one unnamed official told Reuters that 100 to 200 unapproved products could benefit immediately.
FDA Commissioner Marty Makary resigned days after the agency announced that shift, and Reuters reported that the White House push on flavors contributed to his exit.
On September 28, 2026, the FDA confirmed that it plans to replace the 2021 rule and promised to keep its public health standard, but it named no new requirements or timeline.
