It was recently announced that Dr. Brian King would lead the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Tobacco Products.
The center’s previous director retired in April, and an acting director is in place until King takes over in July.
King is the wrong choice and the FDA needs reforms, especially concerning its funding and regulation of tobacco products. While other centers at the FDA receive taxpayer funding through the congressional budget process, the CTP is solely funded by user fees paid by tobacco product manufacturers based upon a percentage of their sales. Only six classes of tobacco products are subject to user fees, and FDA has acknowledged that e-cigarettes are not subject to user fees.
This is not only lousy budgeting, but it forces the FDA to rely on cigarettes (arguably the most harmful form of tobacco) to fund research on less dangerous tobacco products before allowing consumers to use those products. As it is now, tobacco manufacturers are paying for the regulation of other tobacco products — which aren’t paying for any of their rules.
King may not be the best suited for the role. A look at what King did at his previous place of employment, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, shows a pattern of complete distrust of less harmful tobacco products, instances of confusing the public, and a conflict of interest in published studies. Congress should be wary of this unaccountable bureaucrat as this change in leadership comes when hundreds of thousands of novel tobacco harm-reduction products are awaiting FDA authorization.
While King may be experienced in leading CTP, given his extensive background on smoking issues at CDC, King is very distrustful of e-cigarettes and is likely to deny authorization for hundreds of thousands of pending products.
Linsey Stroud – InsideSources – 2022-06-13.
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