Source: www.medpagetoday.com Date: July 12, 2017 Author: Salynn Boyles The U.S. House Appropriations Committee made a move Wednesday to greatly weaken the FDA's authority to regulate tobacco products, including flavored cigars and electronic cigarettes, and health advocacy groups were quick to condemn it. The committee approved a rider to the agriculture funding bill that would exempt certain cigars from FDA's authority and weaken its regulatory oversight over e-cigarettes, little cigars, and hookah tobacco. Prior to the vote, the House committee defeated an amendment by Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) to remove language from the bill that will effectively eliminate FDA's authority to review the health hazards of thousands of tobacco products. A second rider would exempt from FDA authority certain cigars, including many that are cheap, flavored and are most likely to appeal to children, said American Lung Association (ALA) President Harold Wimmer. "These dangerous riders were added to this bill for the benefit of the tobacco industry and come at a time when e-cigarettes are the most commonly used tobacco product among kids," Wimmer said in a written press statement. The riders are similar to those passed by the House Appropriations Committee last year, but the language restricting FDA's authority under the Tobacco Control Act was dropped from the final FY2017 bill later in the appropriations process. New language in the FY2018 bill does require the FDA to develop standards for the flavors added to e-cigarettes. ALA spokesperson Erika Sward told MedPage Today that it is not clear if the [...]