Durbin says Trump lets Big Tobacco target children

The Food and Drug Administration authorized flavored e-cigarettes for the first time on May 8, a decision Sen. Dick Durbin says amounts to letting Big Tobacco target children. The Illinois Democrat, who lost his father to lung cancer at age 14, has spent decades pushing back against tobacco marketing.

Durbin’s personal fight against tobacco

His father smoked two packs of Camels a day and died at 53. That loss drove the senator to champion policies like the 1988 ban on smoking on domestic flights, which helped push cigarettes out of public spaces. Smoking rates have since hit record lows, he noted.

But tobacco companies didn’t disappear. They rebranded with vaping and e-cigarettes, and Durbin says they followed the same playbook: market addictive products in kid-friendly flavors like cool mint, fruit punch, and banana split. Since 2014, these devices have become the most common tobacco product among youth, according to him.

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He has introduced bipartisan legislation to crack down on flavored e-cigarettes, pushed to update federal tobacco taxes, and called on the FDA and Justice Department to enforce laws against unauthorized sales. “But now Big Tobacco has found an ally in the Trump administration,” he wrote.

The FDA reversal on flavored vapes

On May 8, the agency for the first time authorized flavored e-cigarettes from one company, reversing years of acknowledging that flavors play a unique role in addicting children. It gave the green light for vapes in tastes like blueberry and mango, Durbin said.

Days later, thousands of other such products were allowed to remain on the market without the legally required premarket authorization. Previously, those items had been unlawfully marketed, but the FDA had been slow to remove them. “The law is clear,” he wrote. Companies must prove their devices are “appropriate for the protection of the public health” before being sold.

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He pointed to the ouster of FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, who had concerns about these flavors addicting minors. “Trump unilaterally decided that these toxic products should be widely available to kids,” the senator said.

Health risks and political ties

Formaldehyde, chromium, heavy metals like nickel and lead — all are prevalent in e-cigarettes, he noted. Recent studies continue to raise alarms about vaping’s potential to cause cancer. The administration supposedly committed to “Make America Healthy Again” is now poised to unleash a new wave of addiction, he argued.

In a Senate hearing last week, Durbin questioned six senior health officials — all physicians or Ph.D.s — from the National Institutes of Health. None could condone the FDA decisions. The NIH director himself conceded, “Kids having more access to vaping does not make sense to me.”

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Tobacco giants recently dined with the president at his golf resort and donated heavily to his campaign, he noted. “Statues in his likeness will surely be erected at the headquarters of tobacco giants Reynolds American and Altria,” he wrote. “To Trump, that will be worth the price of another generation of children lost to nicotine addiction.”

What happens next

Dangerous, addictive nicotine products — in flavors like cotton candy, bubblegum, and mint — will be sold in vape shops and convenience stores nationwide without proper regulation, he said. He warned that children who become addicted to nicotine via e-cigarettes are more likely to smoke cigarettes later, leading to more cancer and suffering.

Durbin, the senior U.S. senator from Illinois, has been a Democrat in Congress since 1997. His office did not respond to requests for comment on whether any legal challenges are planned.