MHRA Reschedules E-cigarette Consultation Meeting

A few days ago we reported that the MHRA, the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, the United Kingdom's version of the FDA, wants to classify electronic cigarettes as a drug device and had scheduled a consultation meeting to hear from industry experts.

Upon learning that Prof. Carl Phillips, world renowned tobacco control expert and strong supporter of ecigs would attend at his own expense to counter the drug companies paid "experts", he was initially refused access as an independent party and had to take a temporary consultant position with E-Cigarette Direct, the UK distributor for Njoy, to gain access. The MHRA decided to reschedule the meeting instead citing a rule violation that meetings can not be held during elections. At that time it was felt that perhaps the catalyst for this decision was not a rule violation, but rather the hopes that Prof. Phillips would have to return to Canada and not be able to attend.

That meeting has now been rescheduled to June 4th, exactly one day AFTER the end of the consultation period. It does indeed seem that the MHRA is not really interested in hearing any expert opinions and instead, this governmental body which has come under fire recently by a parliamentary select committee for it's often too close of a relationship with the pharmaceutical industry may have already made up it's mind.

We shall see.