FDA to Review Safety and Legality of Inhalable Caffeine
According to Senator Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has agreed to investigate the safety and legality of AeroShot®, which allows consumers to inhale a powder delivering 100 mg of caffeine to the body. Created by a Harvard professor and a company led by Harvard graduate Tom Hadfield, the product was apparently launched in January 2012 in New York and Boston markets. Its sale is not limited by any age restrictions nor has the product been reviewed by any agency. Still, Hadfield has reportedly indicated that the FDA review “will conclude that AeroShot is a safe, effective product that complies with FDA regulations.”
Schumer called for the FDA review in a December 2011 letter raising concerns
about the use of caffeine by children and adolescents. He also noted that a
company marketing video “flashes through a variety of settings, including a
dance party, a club scene, and a bar, where users are shown with AeroShot
inhalers in their mouths. . . . This new inhalable caffeine product seems well on
its way to being marketed to encourage use by young adults in conjunction
with alcohol.” Schumer also said, “We need to make sure that AeroShot does
not become the next Four Loko by facilitating dangerous levels of drinking
among teenagers and college students.” See Press Release of Senator Charles
Schumer, February 21, 2012; npr.org, February 22, 2012.
Meanwhile, the Illinois-based PapaNicholas Coffee Co. has reportedly
launched Versanto Force 3X®, described as “a new, hyper-caffeinated coffee, a
product with three times the caffeine of ordinary coffee.” The company offers
the product in three flavors: “High Octane Premium,” “Supersonic Cinnamon,”
and “Vortex Vanilla.” Sold in grocery stores for brewing at home, the coffee
is marketed as a convenience to those seeking to avoid long lines in coffee
shops and needing three standard cups of coffee to wake up in the morning.
See PR Newswire, February 21, 2012.
