Trump’s flavored vape push sparks backlash from MAHA influencers, health officials

The Trump administration’s moves to make flavored vapes more widely available have caused a splintering among some in the MAHA movement and some federal health officials.

The Trump administration’s recent moves to make flavored e-cigarettes and vapes more widely available have caused a splintering among prominent voices in the MAHA movement and even some federal health officials.

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Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy’s senior spokesperson, Richard Danker, resigned Wednesday over the regulatory changes, which include a pathway for tobacco companies to begin selling flavored electronic cigarettes and the first Food and Drug Administration authorization of fruit-flavored vapes. The new policies also played a role in the ousting of FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, who opposed them.

In Danker’s resignation letter, viewed by NBC News and first obtained by The New York Times, he wrote that flavored e-cigarettes “would appeal to children and expose them to nicotine addiction, lung damage, and higher risk of cancer.”