FDA Tobacco Authority Gets Mixed Reviews

Rocky Womack
Virginia Correspondent

As expected, on June 22, President Barack Obama signed legislation to grant the authority over tobacco products to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Of course, health advocates were delighted at the legislation’s passage and the president’s signing. Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said, the president “struck an historic blow against the greatest public health menace of our time.” He added that the president’s action is the strongest that the federal government has ever taken to reduce tobacco use.

“This new law will protect our children from the tobacco industry’s predatory marketing, save countless lives and reduce the enormous health and financial burden that tobacco use imposes on our nation,” Myers said.

The passage of the FDA legislation creates mixed feelings among the two major domestic tobacco manufacturers. Altria Group called Obama’s signing of the legislation “an important and historic achievement.” From the beginning of this long fight to passage, Altria has supported FDA regulation of tobacco products and still believes it is the right action.

“We have consistently advocated for federal regulation that recognizes the serious harm caused by tobacco products, that helps ensure tobacco companies do not market tobacco products to children and that also acknowledges that tobacco products are and should remain legal products for adults,” said Altria Chairman and CEO Michael Szymanczyk in a prepared statement released to the press. “We believe a comprehensive regulatory framework, implemented thoughtfully, can provide significant benefits to adult consumers.”

What FDA will do in the future is what concerns Reynolds American, a strong competitor to Altria Group. Maura Payne, vice president of communications, says Reynolds American did not support the bill as it was coming through Congress because of two important reasons-was FDA the best agency and did the legislation address harm reduction?

Payne says FDA already has a full slate of duties on its plate without adding tobacco regulation to it. In fact, she says the agency has a difficult time managing its current duties. Reynolds American and other parties, including the former FDA commissioner, have also expressed concern that FDA regulation will create “unintentional confusion,” she says, and may lead the public into believing that tobacco products might be safer than they were in the past just because the product has FDA approval.

The second major concern by Reynolds American had about the bill was that it did not incorporate a tobacco harm reduction component in the regulatory structure. Payne says the bill focuses on tobacco prevention and cessation, but could have had a more significant impact if adults who use tobacco had access to reliable scientific information on the different levels of risk, different risks for different present. She says those who choose to continue using tobacco products need to be educated about the different levels of risk involved with each type of product.

With all that said, Payne stresses that Reynolds American will abide by the laws of FDA, now that the agency has authority to regulation tobacco products.

She says the company has had a decade to prepare and envision what compliance would be like under FDA regulation, “and what we need to do.”

Nonetheless, the concern is still there. Will it FDA regulation squelch new product development? Will it offer fewer opportunities for the companies to give tobacco consumers alternatives? Time will tell.