On March 15, tobacco controllers gathered at a hotel in Baltimore for an annual conference hosted by the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco (SRNT), the preeminent scientific society in the field.
This year, the board decided to bar the industry from presenting research, in a move some notable scholars and academics have criticized as a suppression of science.
But the meeting still seemed well-attended. Mitch Zeller, the departing director of the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Tobacco Products (CTP), gave perhaps his last public speech in that role. At one point, he reportedly looked down at his watch, signaling a clock would soon start ticking.
It was not the countdown to his retirement. Instead, just 40 or so miles away, President Joe Biden was about to sign an omnibus spending bill, giving the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) the power to regulate synthetic nicotine like any other “tobacco product.” The law will go into effect in 30 days.
Alex Norcia – Filter – 2022-03-16.