The FDA has ordered Juul e-cigarettes to be pulled off the market after they determined the company lied about their products. Mike Papantonio is joined by journalist & podcast host, Rick Outzen, to discuss.
Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Mike Papantonio: The FDA has ordered Juul e-cigarettes to be pulled off the market after they determined that the company lied about their products. Can you imagine lying about their products?
Rick Outzen: No, no. Never, never.
Mike Papantonio: Joining me to talk about this is Rick Outzen, editor and publisher and owner of independent news. Rick, I looked at this story and, you know, there really are no surprises here, are there?
Rick Outzen: No.
Mike Papantonio: That the, Juul has been lying about this for what, what are we going on now, 15 years.
Rick Outzen: Well, they were, you know, they, we know they targeted high schoolers. They were going after, they created fruit flavor, mint flavored. This time they were coming back to the FDA and to say maybe we could get by, by with tobacco flavored e-cigarettes and again, that got rejected. Same issue as before. They have no scientific data showing that it will not cause harm. They didn’t do any of the studies they’re supposed to do. Now, and remember, one time this company had almost 55% of the e-cigarette market here, which is a $9 billion business.
Mike Papantonio: Mm-hmm.
Rick Outzen: So this is again, not wanting to do the studies, trying to avoid lawsuits that are out there. They’ve already had a couple of big settlements in North Carolina, I think for like 40 million there.
Mike Papantonio: That’s for the attorney general, yeah.
Rick Outzen: Right. Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: Well, you know, as you know, this law firm started the case against the tobacco industry. And so we, we had a chance to look at all the documents. We, we took a look at the fact that these are companies that have no moral compass.
Rick Outzen: Right.
Mike Papantonio: What they’re really trying to do with the e-cigarette thing is simply create another generation of folks that are addicted to nicotine. Now, you know, the, the people hearing this, the, the, that the loyalty is insane. The people who are e-cigarette lovers are insane about this product.
Rick Outzen: Right.
Mike Papantonio: You can give them all the information that’s out there about how dangerous it is, how the diseases it causes. You can give them all the information about how the company’s lying to them about being safe. Doesn’t make any difference. If they’re an e-cigarette user, they say, well, you know what? It got me off of cigarettes. I’m gonna stick with it. You know, I can’t, I can’t do anything else. So I gotta go to e-cigarettes. You cannot talk a vapor out of not vaping, no matter what you show that person.
Rick Outzen: Right. They, you know, they argue, well, it’s not, it’s better than, than smoking, than, you know, actually lighting up a cigarette. But we know, and I’ve talked to your researchers and, and your, your team and you and I’ve sat around it. It’s a direct hit of nicotine to the brain, I mean.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. We, we’re handling the case.
Rick Outzen: Right.
Mike Papantonio: I mean, just pure disclosure. We’re handling the case, going out in California right now, the documents are atrocious.
Rick Outzen: Right.
Mike Papantonio: The documents show that this is an industry that understands they had to back off with straight cigarettes. So what they’re trying to do now is get an entire new generation hooked on, hooked on nicotine. They can put, they make it goofy grape taste. Oli oli orange taste, whatever they want to do. And they seem to get away with it around the world. At least we’re, we’re, we’re cutting they’re cutting legs out from underneath them a little bit. We’re gonna hammer ’em in this lawsuit. I promise you.
Rick Outzen: Well, here’s the scary thing. There’s 6.5 million applications for more e-cigarettes that are in the FDA now. So it, it, we got a long way to go to make a dent in this one, brother.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah, no question.
