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

From: New York Times

Joe Nocera

“We need a national debate on nicotine,” said Mitch Zeller.

Zeller is the director of the Center for Tobacco Products, a division of the Food and Drug Administration created in 2009 when Congress passed legislation giving the F.D.A. regulatory authority — at long last! — over cigarettes. In addition, the center will soon have regulatory authority over other tobacco products, including electronic cigarettes, which have become enormously controversial even as they have gained in use. Through something called a “deeming rule,” the center is in the process of asserting that oversight over e-cigarettes.

From: National Review

by Sally Satel

***

What is driving the controversy over e-cigarettes? At its core lies a tension between two camps: the precautionists and the pragmatists.

***

From: Motley Fool

By Rich Smith

Reducing the harm associated with tobacco use is a legitimate aim. … What is needed to determine how best to achieve this is good-quality science…
— Jeff Stier, senior fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research.

To obtain this “good quality science,” the U.S. Food and Drug Administration next month will announce a new regulation “deeming” electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) and the nicotine-laced e-liquid that fuels them to be products subject to the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. Products that, like tobacco, need government regulation.

From: The National Center for Public Policy Research

Press Release

Stier, who directs the National Center’s Risk Analysis Division, also will moderate a panel on strategies and goals for advancing harm reduction after the FDA announces its new regulations on e-cigarettes, which is expected sometime next month.