FDA delays rules for e-cigarette packaging

The Obama administration is delaying its plan to regulate how electronic cigarettes are packaged.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced in June that it was drafting rules for manufacturers, but that it wanted the public to weigh in first on what warning labels and childproof packaging should look like for products in the burgeoning vapor industry.

{mosads}Comments were due by the end of August, but the agency said it was asked to extend that deadline. The public now has until Sept. 30 to comment on what issues the labels should address, what wording should be used and how the requirement for childproof packaging should be articulated. The FDA said it was drafting the rule to respond to growing public concerns about liquid nicotine poisonings and exposures.

In November, poison control centers reported that calls related to e-cigarettes had nearly doubled in 2014 from the 1,543 exposures reported in 2013, with the majority of cases involving children younger than six. 

Industry and health groups are still waiting for the FDA to finalize its tobacco deeming regulations to, for the first time, regulate e-cigarettes. The agency has been slow from the start on issuing the rule. Groups have been pushing the FDA to release the final rule before the end of the summer. The agency technically has a few more weeks.