{"id":35579,"date":"2020-07-07T23:52:35","date_gmt":"2020-07-07T21:52:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/?p=35579"},"modified":"2020-07-16T18:10:47","modified_gmt":"2020-07-16T16:10:47","slug":"court-of-appeals-strikes-down-fda-warning-labels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/de\/court-of-appeals-strikes-down-fda-warning-labels\/","title":{"rendered":"Court of Appeals Strikes Down FDA Warning Labels"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">In 2016, FDA decided to regulate cigars and require massive health warning labels on all cigar products.\u00a0 Due to ongoing litigation, the warning label requirement has not yet taken effect.\u00a0 Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit struck down FDA warning labels for all cigars, declaring that they are \u201carbitrary and capricious.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">In their opinion linked below, a panel of three appellate judges noted that FDA\u2019s proposed cigar warnings are four times the size as existing health warnings and would cost the cigar industry $100 million to implement.\u00a0 In explaining their decision, the judges noted that \u201cFDA candidly acknowledged that \u2018[r]eliable evidence on the impacts of warning labels \u2026 on users of cigars [and] pipe tobacco \u2026 does not, to our knowledge, exist.\u2019\u201d\u00a0 Because FDA provided an insufficient scientific basis for requiring warning labels on cigars, the three judges unanimously decided to reverse a 2018 decision by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia upholding the warning labels.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cWe have long believed that there is no legal or scientific basis for FDA to regulate premium cigars like cigarettes,\u201d said Drew Newman,\u00a0general counsel\u00a0of J.C. Newman Cigar Co., America\u2019s oldest family-owned premium cigar company. \u201cToday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit agreed, concluding that FDA \u2018acted arbitrarily and capriciously\u2019 in deciding to require massive new warning labels on cigars.\u00a0 Today\u2019s decision also raises serious questions about the legality of health testing, premarket review, and other costly and onerous requirements of FDA regulation.\u00a0 In light of today\u2019s decision, we hope that the courts and FDA will reconsider the regulation of premium cigars altogether. \u00a0As an industry of small, family-owned businesses that handcraft natural products in small batches, regulating premium cigars like cigarettes simply does not make sense.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">On July 22, the cigar industry will present its case challenging FDA regulation in its entirety before Judge Amit P. Mehta of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><a href=\"https:\/\/mcusercontent.com\/57bb6c487fe271ada7d283d9b\/files\/40189640-88bd-4a8f-bc0b-a6681d0ef6c5\/DC_Circuit_Opinion.pdf?utm_source=Media+2018&amp;utm_campaign=b6789f0c24-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_03_15_02_54_COPY_01&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_term=0_7ceda89dc9-b6789f0c24-24423521&amp;mc_cid=b6789f0c24&amp;mc_eid=ca7ae4488e\"><span class=\"s1\">READ TODAY&#8217;S D.C. CIRCUIT COURT OPINION&#8230;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 2016, FDA decided to regulate cigars and require massive health warning labels on all cigar products.\u00a0 Due to ongoing litigation, the warning label requirement has not yet taken effect.\u00a0 Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit struck down FDA warning labels for all cigars, declaring that they are \u201carbitrary and capricious.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":35580,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[177,53,49,44],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35579"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}