COLE-BISHOP UPDATE
On April 30, 2017, at about 9:00 p.m. eastern, House and Senate leaders reached a deal to fund the government for the next five months. Though the bill averted a government shutdown, it did not include the Cole-Bishop Amendment, which has been the vapor industry’s top legislative priority.  Our intelligence tells us that while Cole-Bishop was not included, this first major attempt to incorporate bipartisan legislation in support of the industry in a major budget bill was hugely impactful. In fact, unlike previous efforts, the ultimate decision came down to just a few senators.

While we are exceptionally grateful for each of those Members of Congress who spoke up for small businesses and the vapor industry, we are particularly grateful for each vapor company, large and small, who aggressively pushed the agenda and who encouraged others to write and call their elected officials.

And, while this particular outcome is disappointing, our resolve to save vapor is strong because we have only set the stage for future success. The current budget deal runs for only 5 months. During that time, we will continue to press for a Congressional solution.

As you know, the multi-pronged plan we laid out at the beginning of 2017 included both Congressional and Administration activities. In that regard, VTA already has commenced its strategies to seek relief from the Trump Administration. Just last week, VTA leadership met with Secretary Price’s senior leadership team to make the case for that relief.  In the coming months, we will be moving forward on dual paths in Congress and the Administration.

This Tuesday, May 2, 2017, at 2:00 pm (eastern), Ashley Davis and Malloy McDaniel from West Front Strategies, two members of our bi-partisan government affairs team will join us for a national webinar to provide an update on where things stand in Washington, D.C. for the vapor industry.   We highly encourage you to click here to register and get the play-by-play on what went down this week and where we are heading: Please click here to register for “Cole-Bishop Outcome and All Things Federal!”

Please take a moment and forward this email to anyone you know will be interested in what’s going on and encourage them to sign up for our mailing list at www.vaportechnology.org or www.SaveVapor.org.

And, don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Thank you for all you do to defend our industry!

Tony Abboud
Executive Director
Vapor Technology Association

I’m going to be adding to this post as I get information including a summary of the effort, a complete list of all involved and links with additional information and how you can get involved and support it. So keep an eye on this post as it updates.

Thank you to all involved who work and testify on our and the industry’s behalf.

From Lou Ritter – AEMSA co-founder and first President (now emeritus), ERF Founder and President, Chairman of the ANSI TC126/SC3 TAG for vape and vapour products (Jesus Lou, that’s a lot of titles 🙂 ):

Advocacy efforts have been primarily top-down (FDA, OMB/OIRA, etc.). Various State level advocacy organizations have focused on responding to “Calls to Action” and responding at those levels. This is a different approach – sort of bottom-up as a local municipality (Village of Hartland WI) faces the impacts of the FDA regulations on their local economy, whether or not the deeming rule will close a local business and if there are justifiable health concerns to support such economic impacts – both locally and nationally.

The findings resulted in no “coordination” to fiscal impacts, no justifications, etc. This could possibly result in the FDA regulations getting a “stay” or other delay. Much of this depends on how Scott Gottlieb interprets it, his position, political pressures, and if the FDA decides to take it to court.

Below you will find all of the hearing testimony and the Findings which contains some really good news.

Unfortunately, they are not allowing the videos to be embedded here so you will need to follow the links to view them on YouTube.

Village of Hartland Public Hearing: Coordination with the FDA 4/27/2017

Hartland Public Hearing: Coordination with FDA 4/28/2017

Hartland Public Hearing: Coordination with the FDA 4/29/2017

5/1/2017 Public Hearing Board: Coordination with FDA, Findings

As part of its investigation into the potential health effects of electronic cigarettes, the California Department of Public Health has been conducting air sampling and personal exposure monitoring in vape shops throughout the state. The results of sampling in one of these vape shops, obtained by The Rest of the Story, reveal that “secondhand vaping” appears to result in minimal exposure of bystanders to hazardous chemicals.

This study, although conducted under very high exposure conditions in a small, non-ventilated vape shop with many employees and customers vaping and clouds of vapor visible, did not document any dangerous levels of exposure to any hazardous chemical. Nicotine exposure was essentially non-existent. Formaldehyde exposure was no different than in many indoor and outdoor environments at baseline. Acetone, acetoin, other aldehydes, toluene, benzene, and xylene were not detected. Chemicals that have been associated with “popcorn lung” were also not detected by the standard method.

Read more HERE.

A new study found no evidence that a commercially available e-cigarette vapor promotes the development of cancer in laboratory cells. In contrast, smoke from a reference cigarette was positive for cancer-promoting activity at very low concentrations.

Read more HERE.

BREAKING (GOOD) NEWS: FDA TO ISSUE GUIDANCE DEFERRING DEADLINES BY THREE MORE MONTHS.

VTA has been working closely with Breathe Easier Alliance of Alabama (BEAA) on an administration strategy for the past couple months. Last week, we met with senior leadership at HHS emphasizing the need to re-evaluate the deeming regulation. Earlier today, Stacey Hamilton, President of BEAA and VTA Board Member, informed us that FDA sought an extension of its briefing schedule in Cyclops Vapor v. FDA so that the FDA could re-evaluate the deeming.

Sure enough, this afternoon FDA announced that it is doing so in all cases and that it is going to issue guidance to defer enforcement of all future compliance deadlines for all newly deemed products by an additional 3 months so that new leadership at the FDA and the Department of Health and Human Services can have additional time to more fully consider issues raised by the final rule that are now the subject of multiple lawsuits.

This is an important step forward in our D.C. efforts. Stay tuned for more to come.

Good evening,

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is announcing information about the outstanding compliance deadlines related to the May 2016 final rule that extended the agency’s authority to additional tobacco products, including e-cigarettes, cigars, hookah tobacco and pipe tobacco, among others.

In lawsuits regarding the final rule, the FDA has stated that it will defer enforcement of all future compliance deadlines under the rule for electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) such as e-cigarettes, cigars, and pipe tobacco for three months. In light of this, the FDA also intends to defer enforcement of all future compliance deadlines for all categories of newly regulated products for three months and plans to issue guidance describing its position in the near future.

This concerns deadlines set for May 10, 2017, or later, including those for manufacturer submission of cigar warning label plans, registration and listing, ingredient listing, health documents, substantial equivalence exemption requests, substantial equivalence applications, premarket tobacco product applications (PMTAs), and harmful and potentially harmful constituent (HPHC) reports.

This does not apply to provisions of the final rule where compliance deadlines already have passed, such as mandatory age and photo-ID checks to prevent illegal sales to minors.

This extension will allow new leadership at the FDA and the Department of Health and Human Services additional time to more fully consider issues raised by the final rule that are now the subject of multiple lawsuits in federal court.

Please contact me with any questions.

Lindsay R. Tobias
Policy Analyst, Stakeholder Relations Office

Center for Tobacco Products
Office of the Center Director
U.S. Food and Drug Administration
301-796-6743 (o)
240-507-8453 (m)
Lindsay.Tobias@fda.hhs.gov

Out of the budget but, still in the fight!

Sunday evening (April 30, 2017) congressional leaders met to finalize the FY2017 omnibus spending bill for the US budget. The Cole-Bishop amendment, which would provide much-needed relief to the vapor industry by allowing it to continue manufacturing products that were on the market pre-August 2016, was stripped out of the spending package along with 159 other “riders.” Once again, opponents of the effort to modernize the 2007 predicate date displayed their ignorance of this issue by restating the need for vapor products to undergo pre-market FDA review–a process that 99% of the industry cannot afford.

This Cylaid is a slightly overrated cell with a useless pulse rating. It matches the Samsung 35E in both appearance and in performance.

While this cell has the claimed 10A rating in fine print on the wrap it has a useless 20A “max pulse discharge” rating on the wrap too. It also features “20A” in a larger font which many people will use as the cell’s rating when shopping or when a vendor displays it on their web site. For these reasons I feel the large “20A” rating, or any “pulse” or “max” rating, is misleading and shouldn’t be used.

I am rating this Cylaid at 8A and 3500mAh.

My thanks to Cylaid for donating the two cells for testing! (https://cylaid18650.en.alibaba.com)

Test results, discharge graph, photos: https://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/threads/cylaid-10a-3500mah-18650-bench-test-results-a-rewrapped-8a-battery.801091/

All my test results to date: https://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/blog-entry/list-of-battery-tests.7436/

This Cylaid is an overrated cell with a useless pulse rating. It matches the Sony VTC6 in both appearance and in performance.

While this cell has the claimed 25A rating in fine print on the wrap it has an even more useless 40A “max pulse discharge” rating on the wrap too. It also features “40A” in a larger font which many people will use as the cell’s rating when shopping or when a vendor displays it on their web site. For these reasons I feel the large “40A” rating, or any “pulse” rating, is misleading and shouldn’t be used.

I am rating this Cylaid at 15A and 3000mAh.

My thanks to Cylaid for donating the two cells for testing! (https://cylaid18650.en.alibaba.com)

Test results, discharge graph, photos: https://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/threads/cylaid-25a-3000mah-18650-bench-test-results-just-an-overrated-20a-battery.800861/

All my test results to date: https://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/blog-entry/list-of-battery-tests.7436/