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FDA suspends Juul ban during appeal process

FDA suspends Juul ban during appeal process

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The company will keep selling its e-cigarettes

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Illustrations of Juul e-cigarettes.
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The Food and Drug Administration suspended its ban on Juul’s e-cigarettes as the company goes through the appeals process, the agency said Tuesday.

The FDA rejected Juul’s applications to sell tobacco- and menthol-flavored e-cigarettes in June, saying the company had to pull its products off the market. Juul appealed the decision, and a federal court issued a temporary stay of the ban while the company went through the appeals process. The company also asked the FDA to stay its own ban, and the agency initially refused, according to court filings.

Juul said in court filings that the FDA did not evaluate its entire application and that it made the decision to ban Juul’s products based on political pressure. Juul said it will continue to sell its products through the appeal process.

“We remain confident in the quality and substance of our applications and believe that ultimately we will be able to demonstrate that our products do in fact meet the statutory standard of being appropriate for the protection of the public health,” Joe Murillo, Juul’s chief regulatory officer, said in a statement to The Wall Street Journal.

In a statement on Twitter, the FDA said that “there are scientific issues unique to the JUUL application that warrant additional review.” This pause on the band does not rescind it, the agency tweeted.