The Trump administration's pivot toward relaxing restrictions on flavored electronic cigarettes has fractured the coalition of figures championing the "Make America Healthy Again" movement, while also triggering high-profile departures from federal health agencies who see the policy as a public health threat.
Richard Danker, senior spokesperson for Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, resigned Wednesday in opposition to the regulatory shift. In his resignation letter, Danker warned that flavored e-cigarettes "would appeal to children and expose them to nicotine addiction, lung damage, and higher risk of cancer." His departure followed the ousting of FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, whose opposition to the flavored vape authorizations put him at odds with other administration officials.
The policy changes include a new pathway for tobacco companies to sell flavored electronic cigarettes and the first FDA authorization of fruit-flavored vapes. Last week, the FDA approved mango- and blueberry-flavored products from Glas Inc., a Los Angeles vaping company. The devices include age-verification technology requiring users to confirm their age with a government-issued ID through a smartphone app.
The White House defended the shift as rooted in evidence. "President Trump consistently pledged to expand access to vapes in light of an abundance of recent evidence finding that these products are beneficial for Americans trying to quit smoking," spokesman Kush Desai said. The administration framed the changes as harm reduction, allowing adult smokers to transition away from traditional cigarettes.
Yet public health researchers dispute that framing. Stanton Glantz, a retired University of California, San Francisco professor who spent his career studying e-cigarettes, said the assumption that vaping reduces harm is fundamentally flawed. While e-cigarettes may be somewhat less dangerous than smoking, he compared the difference to "jumping out of a building from the 40th floor rather than the 50th." A 2016 analysis Glantz published found no evidence that e-cigarettes help people quit smoking in real-world settings, despite limited laboratory studies suggesting they might.
Behind the policy shift lay a direct appeal from tobacco executives. During a lunch meeting in Jupiter, Florida this month, industry lobbyists conveyed their frustrations to Trump about barriers to selling flavored vapes. An upset Trump subsequently called top health officials, including Kennedy, to voice his displeasure. The FDA policy followed shortly after.
The move has created fractures within the MAHA coalition, with some influencers expressing frustration about tobacco industry influence on policy. Alex Clark, a health and wellness podcaster for Turning Point USA, said the administration's vape stance "adds more fuel to the fire when it comes to stoking fears that MAHA moms have that special interest groups are running the White House."
Celebrity fitness trainer Jillian Michaels called Makary's departure a "heroic moment" but criticized the policy itself. "We legalized vapes for children. Basically that's what they are, they're flavored vapes," she said. "This is what tobacco always does. They go after kids."
Other MAHA-aligned figures have taken a different approach. Biohacking influencer Dave Asprey suggested vaping sits outside core MAHA concerns because it represents a choice rather than an unavoidable exposure. He and Michaels have separately argued that low-dose nicotine products like pouches and patches could provide cognitive benefits, though neither claim has strong scientific support. Asprey is an investor in the nicotine pouch company Lucy.
The shift represents a complete reversal from Trump's first term. In 2019, his administration backed an FDA ban on flavored e-cigarettes, with Trump promising "strong rules and regulations." By his 2024 campaign, he was calling to "save vaping," citing potential smoking cessation benefits and small business interests. The International Pediatric Association has stated that e-cigarettes have not proved significantly effective at helping people quit smoking.
Public health experts worry that flavored vapes will primarily attract teenagers without prior smoking experience, potentially creating new nicotine addictions among youth. Vapor from e-cigarettes has been linked to lung and heart disease, as well as cancer. Though sales to minors are illegal nationwide, research shows the flavored products disproportionately appeal to younger users.
Author Sarah Mitchell: "The MAHA movement claimed to be a brake on corporate influence in health policy, yet here we are watching tobacco get exactly what it wanted from Trump after a single lunch meeting."
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