VTA Report: FDA’s Tawdry Record With Cigarette Approvals
Published on May 7, 2024
FDA has authorized more than 1,500 new cigarettes and more than 11,000 combustible tobacco products over the last five years.
Last year, VTA did a deep dive into FDA’s tobacco product approvals. The numbers were shocking then and things have only gotten worse.
FDA’s current leaders, Commissioner Robert Califf and Center for Tobacco Products Director Brian King, have refused to authorize a single premarket tobacco application for less harmful electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) out of millions of products for which PMTAs were submitted. And they have refused to authorize a single less harmful modern oral nicotine product.
At the same time, under their combined leadership, Califf and King have authorized nearly 2,000 combustible tobacco products, of which 821 were new cigarettes with 662 new cigarettes being authorized in 2023 alone!
The FDA Commissioner actually testified last month that “the best thing to do is to stop using tobacco products altogether. The second best would be to switch to a vape.” Quite difficult to do when the agency he runs is singularly focused on pumping more and more new combustible tobacco products into the market while doing everything it can to rip vapes out of the hands of Americans trying to quit smoking.
So, what should we make of an agency which has become prolific in publicizing all of its anti-vaping actions while it is quietly accelerating deadly cigarettes into the market with rubber-stamp approvals?
Our new report – FDA Is On Fire – reveals FDA’s historical and current tawdry relationship with cigarettes and other combustible products and reveals that it has either lost sight of, or has completely abandoned, its primary mission of eliminating smoking.
Also Read: FDA Approves Combustible Tobacco at a Dangerous Rate
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