A Public Participation Forum for the FDA Center for Tobacco Products and its Federal Advisory Committee (TPSAC)

FDA

 The Tobacco Control Act gave FDA the authority to regulate the manufacturing, marketing, and distribution of tobacco products, which are responsible for more than 443,000 deaths in the United States each year. FDA now has a powerful new regulatory tool to make tobacco-related disease and death part of America’s past, not its future—and to ensure a healthier life for every family.

In three years, FDA has moved science-based, tobacco-related regulation forward and started a rigorous tobacco research program to enhance the science already available. FDA focuses on three strategic priorities: preventing initiation, particularly among youth; decreasing the harms of tobacco product use; and encouraging cessation.

Dr. Michael  Siegel

A WebMD article published yesterday highlights the debate over electronic cigarettes.

On one side of the debate are public health practitioners who argue that there is no evidence that these products are safer than regular cigarettes and that they may be leading to smoking among youth and former smokers.

Editor’s Note:  This research is aimed at providing a basis  for future  regulation

Tobacco Reporter

—The US’ National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration have formed an interagency partnership to foster research relevant to tobacco regulations.

According to an FDA Center for Tobacco Products’ (CTP) press note, this funding opportunity ‘invites center grant (P50) applications for Tobacco Centers of Regulatory Science (TCORS) for research relevant to the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act’.

The press note said that the overall TCORS program objective was to conduct programs of multidisciplinary research that would inform the manufacture, distribution, and marketing of tobacco products related to the regulatory authority of the CTP.

International Tobacco on Line

 We read with interest the continuing controversy over FDA’s surveillance of several agency scientists.

The FDA controversy is representative of a government-wide issue regarding  the management of scientific conflicts in the US government.  Consequently the issue at hand is not an agency specific issue

 Does not the USG have the right to monitor emails to safeguard against the release of  national security secrets, criminal activities, racial slurs and confidential business information?  Why then is there  a blanket assumption that the   USG  government can not monitor the emails of its employees at any level of intensity, however great?  Does not the  government have the right to monitor to guard against the deaths related to Wiki Leaks?

American Council on Science and Health

In an op-ed for Reuters, Dr. Margaret Hamburg, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, boasts about the success of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. The news would be quite welcome — if only it were true.

The bill, signed into law by President Obama three years ago, was supposed to reduce the devastating toll of cigarette smoking. As Dr. Hamburg puts it: “The FDA pulled candy and certain other flavored cigarettes off the market; issued new regulations to halt sales of cigarettes, cigarette tobacco, and smokeless tobacco to young people; banned brand-name sponsorship of sporting events and concerts; and implemented requirements for new warning labels for smokeless tobacco products.”

Reuters

(Any opinions expressed are the author’s own)

By Margaret Hamburg

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Three years ago, President Obama signed the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act into law. Those of us present knew we were witnessing history. With the stroke of a pen and strong bipartisan support from Congress, the Food and Drug Administration was charged with protecting public health from tobacco use – the nation’s single most preventable cause of disease, disability and death. More than 1,200 people die each day in the United States because of cigarette use. That is one person every 71 seconds. Today, I am pleased to report that the law is working.

new-press. comm (Gannett)

Mike Mangione of Fort Myers can name more reasons than he has non-nicotine-stained fingers for switching from regular cigarettes to an electronic alternative.

He is among an estimated 2.5 million people now inhaling nicotine through a battery-operated device that heats liquid to make vapor, which takes the fire — and the tar and many other cancer-causing chemicals found in cigarettes — out of smoking.

John Celock    Huffington Post

Kansas lawmakers are considering a resolution that would require state health officials to conduct a study about the health effects of smokeless tobacco, potentially allowing the state to market smokeless tobacco as a healthier alternative to cigarette smoking.

The Federal and State Affairs Committee of Kansas’ House of Representatives has been debating a measure that would require the state’s Department of Health and Environment to conduct a study of the health effects of using smokeless tobacco — commonly known as chewing tobacco — to determine if it is safer than cigarette smoking.