The FDA Is Focused On The Wrong Things

Washington, D.C. – Since the end of World War II, the federal government has grown in size and scope beyond what most of the founding generation did not consider legitimate.

The regulatory impulse of the modern state has produced a permanent, unaccountable meta-government that often ignores the people's sentiments in the name of protecting them. Vivek Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepreneur seeking the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, has made this problem a central issue in his campaign.

An Ohio-born first-generation American, Ramaswamy is explaining to people why the administrative state, his term for it, needs to be reined in.

It's an overdue contribution to the national conversation. Federal regulators are out of control, writing rules that have the force of law, free of accountability for their actions. An alphabet soup of agencies known by their initials wield the power of life and death over essential sectors of the economy and, increasingly, over us.

One agency urgently needing reform is the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, whose purview is literally things that keep us alive and things that can kill us. Unfortunately, it continually errs in both directions. Until President Donald Trump intervened with Operation Warp Speed and other methods of cutting red tape, the FDA appeared it might impede the search for a speedy cure.

That's only one issue of many. The FDA's decades-long war against tobacco, which it decided several years ago included a mandate to regulate vaping devices, is failing. Rather than rethink its premise, however, the agency has decided it needs more power.

The number of different devices available in the United States has tripled during the Biden years, most of them coming from one country in Asia. “(I)n stark contrast to regulators' own figures, which tout the rejection of some 99% of company requests to sell new e-cigarettes while authorizing only a few meant for adult smokers,” the Associate Press recently reported, the nation is awash in disposable, flavored e-cigarettes coming from China where, incidentally, they are not available.

Rather than focus on the flood of products from China, the FDA is pivoting back to another part of its mission to wipe out tobacco. It's seriously considering imposing a ban on the sale of menthol cigarettes, which have been around since the 1920s and became popular in the 50s.

The number of young tobacco users is at an all-time low. An FDA ban on menthol is for adults who, one presumes, should be respected for their desire to have options. They may prefer flavored vapes as an alternative to tobacco. The data shows that many do.

Yet, because young people also prefer flavors, the government sees them as a health hazard. Flavors have been driven from U.S. markets – except for what's coming from China. The FDA apparently can't do anything about those – or doesn't want to expend the resources and political capital necessary to try.

The pivot to menthol is like what you'd like to see in the private sector. Hit a wall, move to something else. We want something else from the government. We don't want entrepreneurial regulators looking for opportunities. We want them to do what Congress has authorized, and only that.

Regulations can be dangerous, and bans can kill. The Volsted Act, which made the production of alcohol illegal except for certain specific, highly regulated purposes, created a black market kept in line by murder. Now the FDA thinks it can get rid of menthol cigarettes. Who does it think it's kidding?

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.

READ NEXT: Trump Asked To Do Something Unique Before Leaving Court