The Food and Drug Administration is expected to order Juul Labs Inc. to take its e-cigarettes off the U.S. market, sources told The Wall Street Journal.
Driving the news: This “marketing denial order,” expected to be announced as early as Wednesday, will be followed by a two-year data review presented by the company, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Meanwhile, the Biden administration is planning to propose limits to nicotine levels that tobacco companies use in order to reduce addictiveness, per The Hill.
This proposed rule “would also help to prevent experimenters (mainly youth) from initiating regular use, and, therefore, from becoming regular smokers,” according to a statement from the administration. Details of the new limits were not mentioned.
The stock market: Per Reuters, Altria Group, a tobacco giant that also owns a 35% stake in vaping products, like Juul, saw a dip in shares by 8.5% after the news about the FDA came out.
Flashback: Juul started facing scrutiny when a report indicated that 60% of high schoolers use vaping products, with the mint flavor as the most popular.
Still, rising nicotine addictions and a lack of research on the health risks of vaping products have caused concern over the vaping company.
In 2020, the FDA banned the sale of all sweet or fruit-flavored e-cigarettes, but tobacco-flavored products are still on the market, according to The Independent.