FDA and CDC’s Irresponsible Covid-19 Actions and Inactions

Long after today’s Covid-19 crisis, Americans will remember the catastrophic failures of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Food and Drug Administration, the two federal agencies tasked with protecting public health.

Covid-19 infections were first reported in Washington State in late January, virtually at the same time as in South Korea.  According to a detailed timeline, that country immediately “pursued a trace, test, and treat strategy that identifies and isolates those infected with the coronavirus while allowing healthy people to go about their normal lives…the U.S. lost six crucial weeks because regulators stuck to rigid regulations…” which “proved disastrous in a pandemic.”  A Reuters headline put it succinctly: “…Korea trounced U.S. in [a] race to test people for coronavirus.”

John P.A. Ioannidis, professor of medicine, epidemiology and population health at Stanford University, opined: “Covid-19 has been called a once-in-a-century pandemic. But it may also be a once-in-a-century evidence fiasco.”  He noted that as a consequence of the testing disaster, officials have been required to institute draconian countermeasures, including extreme social distancing and lockdowns.  “But,” he observes, “with lockdowns of months, if not years, life largely stops, short-term and long-term consequences are entirely unknown, and billions, not just millions, of lives may be eventually at stake.  If we decide to jump off the cliff, we need some data to inform us about the rationale of such an action and the chances of landing somewhere safe.”

Bureaucrats at the CDC and the FDA delayed the rapid development of Covid-19 testing by failing to adapt to emergent conditions and stuck to rigid regulations that take months and years.  These failures have been documented in publications from across the political spectrum, including conservative and libertarian outlets, and the liberal New York Times (here and here).

The FDA’s primary error was its failure to quickly approve Covid-19 tests from university and commercial laboratories.  This sort of “regulatory purgatory” has plagued the sale of vastly safer cigarette substitutes (examples here, here, here and here) -- inaction that contributes to the premature deaths of 480,000 inveterate smokers annually.  Delayed Covid-19 testing has already resulted in tens of millions of Americans having lost their livelihoods, and for far too many, their lives.

The FDA is continuing its unscientific anti-vape campaign with a Covid-19 twist.  Spokesperson Michael Felberbaum provided this warning to Bloomberg News: “People with underlying health issues, such as heart or lung problems, may have increased risk for serious complications from Covid-19.  This includes people who smoke and/or vape tobacco or nicotine-containing products.  E-cigarettes can damage lung cells.”

There is absolutely no evidence that individuals who vape have increased Covid-19 risks.  It is irresponsible for the FDA to make unscientific and unsubstantiated allegations about e-cigarettes without a shred of evidence.  

Federal Officials Endorse Impossibly High Standard for E-Cigarettes

NPR host Diane Rehm on August 5 discussed “Smoking in America Today” with Dr. Tim McAfee, Director of Office of Smoking and Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Mitch Zeller, Director of Center for Tobacco Products at the FDA; Dr. Thomas Glynn, Director of Cancer Science and Trends at the American Cancer Society; Michael Felberbaum, journalist covering tobacco for the Associated Press; and Craig Weiss, President and CEO of e-cigarette maker NJOY (program available here).

The federal officials and Dr. Glynn held essentially identical views on e-cigarettes, providing a strong signal that FDA regulation is likely to be burdensome or even punitive.

Early in the program, Rehm asked about relative risk: “Is there any evidence whatsoever from the public health community regarding electronic cigarettes and whether they are in fact safer than tobacco products?”

The CDC’s McAfee gave an extended answer, starting with: “Well, there’s several different ways that we’re thinking about this, we think it’s an incredibly important question.”  Important, but unanswered, as Dr. McAfee shifted to the familiar cigarette mantra: “… we need to focus on the harm that’s caused by cigarette smoking, and ways to get smokers to quit and to prevent nonsmokers from starting.”  As for e-cigarettes, “.. the challenge is that we don’t yet know how e-cigarettes are going to completely fit into that.  The availability of a cigarette alternative that does deliver nicotine without also delivering harmful by-products of combustion… could this play a beneficial role in reducing tobacco-related death and disease?  This would be especially true if a large number of smokers successfully switched completely to e-cigarettes, either permanently or as a transition phase to nicotine abstinence.”

Dr. McAfee expressed concern that alternative tobacco products might foster dual use, prevent smoking cessation and serve as a gateway to smoking for new users and former smokers. “… The other alternative is that the availability of e-cigarettes could result in harm by increasing the initiation of cigarette use among youth and young adults or by delaying quitting among smokers who, rather than switching, engage in dual use, which currently looks like that’s the majority situation.  People are using them in situations where it’s hard to smoke cigarettes.  And we see ex-smokers think ‘Hey, maybe I can go back to e-cigarettes,’ and that re-kindles their nicotine addiction.  And they actually start smoking cigarettes themselves.”    

Regulator Zeller returned to these themes later in the program.  He alluded to, but never quite acknowledged, the vast difference in risk between traditional and electronic cigarettes: “The thing that’s most interesting about e-cigarette is that we look at individual-level risk, what is the risk, say, to a current smoker who would be otherwise unable or unwilling to quit, if that person completely substituted all of their conventional cigarettes for an e-cigarette, that’s individual-level risk.”

However, he made clear that FDA regulation isn’t about individual smokers: “… Policy is going to be made here at the population level, and there’s population-level harm.  Who is actually using these products?  And how are they being used?  Tim [McAfee] talked about this earlier.  Are current smokers going to be less inclined to quit, and more likely to engage in what we call dual use of both the combustible version and the electronic version?  Are kids going to start using e-cigarettes?  These are the kinds of questions that we have that ultimately comes down to behavior, and right now we have far more questions than answers.”

I discussed in 2010 scientific evidence documenting that a population-level evidentiary standard was “unattainable” (here).  I also said that the standard was unprecedented.  The FDA has regulatory authority over other consumer items – food, cosmetics, drugs, medical devices and vaccines.  FDA regulations assure that drugs, medical devices and vaccines provide the intended medical benefit.  Far more importantly, they assure that all of these products are safe to consume.  The FDA does not traditionally compromise individual safety with a population standard.

Today, the FDA also regulates tobacco products.  One of these (the cigarette) is highly toxic, killing over 400,000 Americans every year.  When the FDA asserts regulatory authority over e-cigarettes, it would be criminal to use an arbitrary population standard to deny American smokers access to these products.