The Juul Hearings Were Biased And Wasteful

Source from:  Vaping Post 07/29/2019

Juul has been in the news nonstop since well before the end of last year. Just the day before, I watched in disgust as members of Congress called into question the efficacy of devices like e-cigarettes and their role in helping smokers quit traditional cigarettes.

I entered into a state of mental preparedness for the second day of testimony. This portion of the hearing featured actual executives from Juul Labs to offer testimony related to the youth vaping epidemic and the company’s alleged role in propagating it.

U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Illinois, the chairman of the Economic and Consumer Policy Subcommittee under the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, opened the second day of testimony by pontificating on the company’s communication strategies and marketing approaches.

This quickly set the tone for the hearing, featuring two witnesses from Juul Labs and one from the tobacco control lobby.

On the first day of the committee hearing, the majority of the experts, activists, and witnesses that spoke were openly anti-vaping. Grassroots group Parents Against Vaping E-cigarettes (PAVE) and anti-vaping researchers spoke on how “Big Tobacco 2.0” directly targets youth. On the opposing side was a lone researcher, Dr. Raymond Niaura of New York University’s College of Global Public Health.

Niaura spoke on the fact that while vaping among youth is a problem that should be addressed, the rates of vaping were not as prevalent as insinuated by Congress and public health regulators such as the FDA.

“While an increase in use is of concern, we were relieved to see that our analysis showed that most adolescent vaping was occasional and that most regular use was concentrated in adolescents who had already been smokers,” Niaura, a respected researcher, testified. “We found that about three-quarters of vapers reported using other tobacco products, such as cigarettes. Most of the increase in vaping, therefore, was seen in youth who were already using other tobacco products.”

The first day became further divisive when anti-vaping activists called upon their own children to offer unsubstantiated claims that Juul representatives speaking about youth vaping prevention called their products totally safe without supervision from teachers and their school’s administrators.

Testimony from these youth is the only substantive statements regarding these claims. If you jump to the second day of testimony, this was a point of argument for the Democrats.

For Juul on the second day, co-founder and chief product officer James Monsees and chief administrative officer Ashley Gould spoke on behalf of the company. Suprinsginly, CEO Kevin Burns was not present on the second day of testimony. During his panel testimony, Monsees alluded to the fact that Burns was not invited to testify saying that the company leader has a better “pulse” on the various functions of the dynamic company.   Enditem