FDA's Gottlieb: More Kids Vaping 'Changes The Equation' For E-Cig Regulation

In his almost two years as FDA Commissioner, Scott Gottlieb has overseen a crackdown on the tobacco industry and on electronic cigarettes. It's an effort he hopes the agency will continue after he steps down in April.

That's because, he says, of increased e-cigarette use among America's youth. If that continues, he tells NPR's Steve Inskeep, the FDA should consider banning them.

Manufacturers of e-cigarettes have promoted them as a way to help smokers taper off and quit cigarettes, but there's no conclusive scientific evidence that they work for long-term smoking cessation. The FDA had once hoped e-cigarettes would give adults a safer way to get nicotine while they tried to quit, and as such, decided to allow companies to sell those products without first proving a net public health benefit.

"We set out on that at a time when youth use of these cigarettes wasn't at epidemic levels," he tells NPR. "Now that we're seeing epidemic growth in the use of these products by kids, that changes the equation."