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WASHINGTON — Congress gave the Food and Drug Administration a clear directive to crack down on vape companies skirting the agency’s rules. But there are growing signs the agency is not ready to do as instructed.

Now, advocates are apoplectic.

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This March, Congress acted remarkably swiftly to give the FDA the power to regulate so-called synthetic nicotine products — vaping products, often sold in fruity flavors like ”watermelon berry,” “banana ice,” and “rainbow cloudz,” that were only on the market because of a loophole in the agency’s tobacco regulation. That loophole allowed companies to sell their products so long as they made them using nicotine produced in a lab, rather than extracting it from a tobacco plant.

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