Health
With a Friend in Trump, the Tobacco Industry Secures a Lucrative Win
Over lunch at his golf club in Jupiter, Fla., on the first Saturday of May, President Trump got an earful from a group of tobacco executives and lobbyists unhappy with the way the Food and Drug Administration was regulating their industry.
Eventually Mr. Trump had heard enough. He interrupted the conversation to call Dr. Marty Makary, the F.D.A. commissioner.
No answer.
Furious, the president then dialed Dr. Makary’s boss, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and another top health official, Dr. Mehmet Oz, the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. He complained to them about the F.D.A.’s regulation of e-cigarettes, according to three people briefed on the meeting who were not authorized to discuss it.
The message was received. Less than one week later, the executives got what they wanted.
On Friday, the F.D.A. issued new guidance that could pave the way for major tobacco companies to begin selling flavored vapes and to snare a chunk of the $6 billion e-cigarette market away from illegal Chinese competitors. The new policy bypassed the F.D.A.’s regular rule-making process.
In the intervening week, Dr. Makary continued to argue against approving flavored vapes as support from Mr. Kennedy and others collapsed around him. Health and Human Services Department staff began to draft the new plan, according to two people familiar with the events.
On Tuesday, Dr. Makary resigned, telling associates he could not in good conscience remain the head of an agency that backed such a policy.
Though there is no definitive evidence linking the new guidance to donations or lobbying, the episode represented a clear pivot in the federal government’s longtime approach to the tobacco industry.
Since the 1990s, when states extracted vast payments and other concessions from the major cigarette companies in a nationwide legal settlement, Big Tobacco has been in retreat. Cigarette sales have plummeted, and regulations have mounted as consumers and administrations from both parties embraced public health consensus about the dangers of smoking and nicotine addiction.
Mr. Trump’s first administration initially continued the trend, proposing further restrictions on cigarettes and moving to outlaw flavored vapes over concerns that their rising popularity threatened the health of a generation of adolescents.
But since then, Mr. Trump has enthusiastically welcomed the financial support of the tobacco industry and has courted e-cigarette users as a political constituency.
The new vaping guidance highlights Mr. Trump’s willingness to use his executive authority to prioritize the causes of major corporate donors over public health concerns, taxpayer interests and the judgment of experts, sometimes including those in his own administration.
The president has developed a close relationship with tobacco companies including Altria and Reynolds American, which have donated millions of dollars to his political groups and projects, including his proposed White House ballroom. Their executives attended the lunch at the president’s golf club.
The Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the F.D.A., referred requests for comment to the White House.
Kush Desai, a White House spokesman, said in a statement that Mr. Trump has pushed to expand access to vapes to help Americans trying to quit smoking.
“The only guiding factor behind the Trump administration’s health policymaking is gold standard science,” Mr. Desai said.
Reynolds American and Altria did not respond to questions about their lobbying or the conversation at the lunch.
It was attended by Jeff Raborn, a top executive at Reynolds, and Phil Park and Todd Walker of Altria, according to the people familiar with the meeting. Also attending were Brian Ballard and Rich Haselwood, lobbyists for the firm Ballard Partners, which represents Reynolds and helped marshal a sophisticated and expensive influence campaign that culminated in the new vaping guidance. Mr. Ballard is a top fund-raiser for Mr. Trump. Mr. Haselwood had been an in-house lobbyist at Reynolds before joining Ballard Partners this year.
A spokesman for Ballard Partners declined to comment.
While public health experts consider e-cigarettes a less harmful alternative to tobacco-burning cigarettes, the new guidance circumvents a scientific review process the F.D.A. had previously defended up to the Supreme Court. The disregarded procedures were meant to ensure approval of only those products shown in studies to help cigarette smokers transition to vapes without attracting a new generation of nicotine users.
The guidance also could allow higher nicotine levels in nicotine pouches. It includes a pledge to prioritize efforts to stop the import of illegal foreign vapes, an idea that has bipartisan support in Congress.
Taken together, the policy changes could help companies like Altria and Reynolds gain market share considered central to the survival of the industry.
The market for vapes and nicotine pouches, like Zyn, is about 30 million people in the United States, on par with the number of cigarette smokers. While the nicotine pouch market is rapidly growing, cigarettes still account for about $50.8 billion, or nearly 70 percent of the annual tobacco sales in the United States, according to a Goldman Sachs research report. Vape sales have lagged amid competition from illicit products.
In recent years, the F.D.A. has moved glacially to approve e-cigarettes, authorizing only those in tobacco or menthol flavors, including some sold by Reynolds and Altria. Unapproved Chinese vapes have poured into the United States, feeding a thriving illicit market with flavors like peach slush and watermelon ice. Last year, industry executives have said, illicit fruit-flavored vapes made up 60 percent of the e-cigarette market.
When Mr. Trump mounted his bid to return to the White House, some in the tobacco industry went all in, hoping he would loosen regulations on vapes and abandon plans by the Biden administration to ban menthol cigarettes and crack down on other cigarette sales.
Mr. Trump in some ways makes for an unlikely savior for the tobacco industry. He has never smoked, but he pledged during his 2024 campaign to “save vaping again.”
Through a subsidiary, Reynolds, which is the biggest seller of menthol cigarettes, donated $10 million to a super PAC backing Mr. Trump’s campaign, according to campaign finance filings. There is no public record of the subsidiary donating to groups supporting Mr. Biden or the campaign of former Vice President Kamala Harris.
Mr. Ballard, whose firm has been paid more than $4.4 million by Reynolds since the beginning of 2017, arranged for Mr. Trump to have dinner during the campaign with Reynolds executives in New York, according to a person familiar with the interactions. The executives urged Mr. Trump to oppose the menthol cigarette ban and expressed concern about Chinese vapes.
Reynolds executives including Mr. Raborn and Mr. Haselwood were such a presence around the campaign that Mr. Trump took to calling them “my tobacco guys,” according to the person familiar with the interactions and a book coauthored by a New York Times reporter and published last year.
When Mr. Trump won, the rest of the industry jockeyed to show support.
Altria donated $1 million to his inaugural committee; the Vapor Technology Association donated $1.25 million; and a subsidiary of Philip Morris donated $500,000.
On Mr. Trump’s second full day in office, his administration withdrew the proposed ban on menthol cigarettes, an initiative the Biden administration had already mostly abandoned. Mr. Trump’s team also set aside a Biden-era proposal to sharply restrict nicotine in cigarettes, an effort meant to speed the transition away from a product known to be deadly.
In applauding the withdrawal of the menthol ban, Billy Gifford, the chief executive of Altria, told investors on an April 2025 earnings call that “we’re hopeful that that activity and momentum continues.”
The courtship intensified.
Reynolds pitched in another $3 million to a different Trump-backed super PAC, while Altria and Juul each donated $1 million.
And Reynolds and Altria each donated to the effort to raise private funds to build a new White House ballroom. Mr. Raborn of Reynolds and Mr. Walker of Altria were invited to a dinner at the White House in October for donors who gave $2.5 million or more, as was Mr. Ballard.
Tadeu Marroco, the chief executive of British American Tobacco, which owns Reynolds American, predicted to investors earlier this year that the Trump administration would clamp down on illegal vapes, saying “it’s very encouraging, the signs that the new administration is giving to address that.”
The companies’ lobbying strategy also has reached into the states, where they are pushing for so-called “registry laws” — of which there are now more than a dozen including in Florida, Virginia and Pennsylvania. Many of those laws restrict e-cigarette sales to only vapes on a list from the F.D.A.
The guidance released last week said it would create such a list.
Sheryl Gay Stolberg contributed reporting.
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Jill Smokler, founder of Scary Mommy, has died at age 48 after a battle with glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer.
The popular “mommy blogger” had been fighting the disease for the past two years, according to an announcement posted on ScaryMommy.com on Monday.
The stay-at-home mother of three launched the blog in 2008 as a place to share the “joys and pitfalls” of parenting, according to the article.
As Scary Mommy expanded from a personal blog into a major parenting brand, Smokler built a following with her honest, often self-deprecating take on motherhood. She went on to speak at blogging conferences, author bestselling books, appear on national television programs and earn three Webby Awards, her biography states.
AGGRESSIVE BRAIN CANCER MAY RESPOND TO HIGH-DOSE VITAMIN THERAPY, STUDY SUGGESTS
“Jill spent her life telling the truth about motherhood — that it could be wonderful and impossible in the very same breath — and in doing so, she gave millions of women permission to stop pretending and feel a little less alone,” her family shared in a statement following her passing.
Jill Smokler, founder of Scary Mommy (pictured in 2018), has died at age 48 after a battle with glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer. (Lloyd Fox/Baltimore Sun/ZUMA Press Wire / Shutterstock)
“She was funny, fearless, generous and entirely herself. More than anything she built, Jill was proudest of her three children, Lily, Ben and Evan. We are heartbroken to lose her, and endlessly proud of the mark she left on the world.”
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Smokler’s first sign of the disease was in April 2024, when she experienced a sudden seizure. She then underwent surgery to remove a brain tumor, after which she didn’t recognize her own children, she previously shared with Today.
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“I am definitely grateful that I don’t remember the looks on their faces when I didn’t recognize them,” she said. “That must have been gutting.”
Smokler was diagnosed with glioblastoma, the most common malignant primary brain tumor in adults and one of the deadliest forms of brain cancer. There is currently no cure.
About 13.9% of all brain tumors are glioblastomas, according to the American Brain Tumor Association. (iStock)
Following surgery, the blogger underwent radiation and chemotherapy, during which she was open about her treatment side effects, including fatigue and hair loss. Additional surgeries and clinical trials followed, according to previous interviews.
“Thank you, Jill, for everything. May you rest in peace,” the Scary Mommy post concluded.
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About 13.9% of all brain tumors are glioblastomas, according to the American Brain Tumor Association. More than 12,000 new cases are diagnosed in the U.S. each year.
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Median survival is approximately 12 to 18 months after diagnosis, even with treatment. Only about 5% to 7% of patients survive five years after diagnosis, data shows.
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Common food preservatives may contribute to higher risks of high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease, according to a large French study.
Researchers analyzed data from 112,395 adults averaging 42 years of age, assessing their detailed dietary intake with an average follow-up of nearly eight years.
Among the participants, 5,544 developed hypertension during the follow-up period, and 2,450 experienced cardiovascular disease events.
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Higher consumption of total non-antioxidant preservatives was associated with a 29% greater risk of hypertension and a 16% higher risk of cardiovascular disease.
Higher consumption of total antioxidant preservatives was linked to a 22% spike in hypertension risk.
Common food preservatives may contribute to higher risks of high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease, according to a large French study. (iStock)
Out of the 17 preservative additives consumed by at least 10% of participants, eight in particular were associated with higher rates of hypertension, including the following.
- Potassium sorbate
- Sorbic acid
- Sodium nitrite
- Potassium nitrite
- Sodium metabisulphite
- Potassium metabisulphite
- Citric acid
- Tripotassium citrate
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Only one of the preservatives – ascorbic acid, which is the food additive form of vitamin C – was significantly associated with higher cardiovascular disease risk.
The finding does not mean that dietary vitamin C itself causes cardiovascular disease, the researchers noted. The study examined ascorbic acid in the form used as a food additive in processed foods, not vitamin C from fruits, vegetables or supplements.
Out of the 17 preservative additives consumed by at least 10% of participants, eight in particular were associated with higher rates of hypertension. (iStock)
The findings were published in the European Heart Journal.
“This is a very important study that puts together what we already know – that preservatives of all kinds raise blood pressure and contribute directly to heart disease and stroke over eight years,” Dr. Marc Siegel, Fox News senior medical analyst, told Fox News Digital.
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“Whereas potassium itself can lower blood pressure, the additive potassium sorbate has previously been found to be associated with hypertension in a large study in the European Heart Journal,” the doctor, who was not involved in the study, told Fox News Digital. “Potassium metabisulphite was also found to raise pressure in the same study.”
The same was found for sodium nitrite in the new study, Siegel noted, with 73% of participants consuming it regularly – “mostly in processed foods like hot dogs, ham, bacon and deli meats.”
“Preservatives of all kinds raise blood pressure and contribute directly to heart disease and stroke over eight years,” a doctor told Fox News Digital. (iStock)
“This has been found in previous research for many years,” he added.
Siegel also discussed the 22% increased risk linked to ascorbic acid. “I am dubious about this association, as it has not generally been found before, but perhaps the risk is when it is used as a chemical preservative.”
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“For all the sodium additives, this is expected, but surprising with extracts of rosemary and citric acid – the key to both of these ingredients is when they are used as preservatives (chemicals),” he added.
Potential limitations
As this was an observational study, it could not prove that the additives caused the health conditions.
Also, the participants who volunteered for the study were generally healthier, more educated and more often female than the general French population, the researchers noted.
As this was an observational study, it could not prove that the additives caused the health conditions. (FG Trade / Getty Images)
There was also the chance that hypertension was underdiagnosed in some participants.
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While the researchers estimated people’s dietary intake as accurately as possible, there was a chance that some consumption was inaccurately reported.
The authors emphasized that these findings need to be confirmed in further research of other populations.
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If the results are replicated in future research, some food preservatives may face additional safety reviews focused on their effects on the cardiovascular system, the researchers suggested.
“The take-home is to use natural ingredients as much as possible, and especially beware of sodium chemical preservatives when it comes to risk of heart disease and stroke from associated hypertension,” Siegel concluded.
JD Vance reveals his favorite dad joke
Dana Perino, Greg Gutfeld, Jesse Watters, and Jessica Tarlov engage in a lighthearted exchange of classic dad jokes on Fox News’ ‘The Five’. The discussion is sparked by recent research highlighted in The Washington Post, which indicates that humor, even ‘cringeworthy’ dad jokes, plays a surprisingly important role in parenting and can help strengthen the bond between fathers and children. The panel illustrates this point with their own memorable one-liners.
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“My neighbor tiled my roof for free. He said it was on the house.”
While that dad joke might elicit a heavy sigh from family members, experts say a silly pun can alter internal body chemistry and lower stress, potentially providing real health benefits.
Dad jokes are uniquely distinguished by their structure, content and comedic devices, according to a study published on PsyArXiv, an open-access preprint repository for psychology research.
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In analyzing thousands of examples, psychologists Paul J. Silvia (University of North Carolina at Greensboro) and Meriel I. Burnett (University of Massachusetts Amherst) found that dad humor is firmly rooted in puns and wordplay.
While more advanced comedy requires context, a joke about a neighbor’s roof may only require someone to understand the dual meaning of a single phrase.
Experts claim a pun can change body chemistry and lower stress. (iStock)
This predictable structure makes dad jokes broadly accessible, creating opportunities for shared humor across generations, the researchers said.
Laughter alters internal chemistry by decreasing stress hormones like cortisol and epinephrine, while simultaneously increasing happiness chemicals like dopamine, serotonin and endorphins.
GRANDPARENTS WHO BABYSIT THEIR GRANDCHILDREN STAY MENTALLY SHARPER, NEW STUDY REVEALS
A 2023 review in PLOS One found that a single laughter session could slash cortisol levels by more than 36%. This drop in stress lights up regions like the prefrontal cortex, helping the brain to process complex ideas.
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Studies have linked pun comprehension to verbal ability, creative thinking and the ability to make connections between different meanings.
Sharing a good laugh can boost oxytocin, a hormone known to deepen emotional bonds between parents and children. (iStock)
“When we see children laugh, we witness the brilliance of the brain in action: learning, connecting and growing,” Jacqueline Harding, PhD, an early childhood expert at Middlesex University in London, told Fox News Digital.
In her book, “The Brain That Loves to Laugh,” Harding states that joy is a complex biological phenomenon that helps children navigate stress and build more resilient, receptive minds.
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“Hope and humor, it seems, are not just the seasoning of life, but foundational to a recipe for healthy development.”
The physical benefit extends directly to the family unit. Sharing a good laugh can boost oxytocin, a hormone known to deepen emotional bonds between parents and children. It also promotes what psychologists call co-regulation, experts say.
Sharing a good laugh can boost oxytocin, a hormone known to deepen emotional bonds between parents and children. (iStock)
This process allows individuals to manage their own stress by drawing on a shared biological store of positive, safe experiences.
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“Spontaneous, joyful play is an antidote to stress, as it increases levels of endorphins released by the brain,” Harding said.
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“Creative, happy play does its most brilliant work at a molecular level, especially at a time when the human brain is at its most receptive.”
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