K-STREET, 10,000 FEET: New leadership can reset the FDA and tobacco policies
THE LOWDOWN:
The Trump administration’s ushering of new leadership at the FDA and CTP can help to reset the current U.S. tobacco policies.
Experts and commentators muse that Kennedy, Makary, and a new team committed to the “Make America Healthy Again” movement will correct the failings of the Biden administration’s FDA and CTP.
King’s leadership and misguided policies might have had consequences with the 2024 election. “Nicotine politics” were found to have made an impact as the politics around the menthol ban has been called a “sleeper issue” in the swing state of North Carolina.
It is important to note that in the first week of his presidency, President Trump stopped the ban on menthol cigarettes via Executive Order.
As FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary was officially sworn into the role by Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, layoffs of bureaucrats across the FDA, including in the Center for Tobacco Products (CTP), were conducted to right-size the sprawling, and — according to industry watchers — ineffective bureaucracy.
Experts and commentators predicted to the Washington Reporter that Kennedy, Makary, and a new team committed to the “Make America Healthy Again” movement will correct the failings of the Biden administration’s FDA and CTP.
Under the Biden-Harris administration, Dr. Brian King led the CTP for two and a half years. King, according to whistleblowers interviewed for the Reagan-Udall Foundation report, “prioritized politics over public health.”
During Dr. King’s tenure, the CTP only authorized a handful of alternative nicotine products that have been found to be less harmful than cigarettes. This lack of products for adults who choose to smoke to switch to other products led to a boom in the illicit market of Chinese vapes that infiltrated our country and put our national security at risk.
According to a Townhall report by Stacy Washington, “China's growing military gets a major share of its funding from the country's state-run tobacco monopoly, which has quietly — and illegally — grabbed half the United States vaping market in recent years, providing the People’s Republic with a whopping 7 percent of its annual government revenue. By itself, that covers the country’s entire military budget.”
Instead of taking the growing threat from illicit Chinese vapes seriously, King utilized strongly worded letters to those breaking the law. In a last-ditch effort to share the blame, King hastily put together a “Joint Task Force” that had minimal success, only seizing $78 million in illicit vapor products from China, a drop in the bucket of a multi-billion dollar industry.
During King’s tenure, the Biden-Harris administration pursued prohibitionist policies such as banning menthol cigarettes and an “11th-hour plan to effectively ban cigarettes.” A bipartisan coalition of members of Congress pushed back against the Biden administration for these product bans. The lawmakers cited the unintended consequences of economic loss with bans, the impact on American farmers, and an increase in illicit market activities.
King’s leadership and misguided policies might have had consequences with the 2024 election. “Nicotine politics” were found to have made an impact as the politics around the menthol ban has been called a “sleeper issue” in the swing state of North Carolina. The Biden-Harris administration ultimately withdrew King’s plans to ban menthol cigarettes, stating that banning menthol cigarettes “posed political risks.”
In the first week of his presidency, President Donald Trump stopped the ban on menthol cigarettes via Executive Order. While Biden’s “11th-hour plan” to ban cigarettes remains out there, the Trump administration could withdraw the ban that is currently in the early stages of the rulemaking process which would also pause the ban for four years.
With new leadership at the White House, at the FDA, and the CTP, there is an opportunity to right the wrongs of King and the Biden-Harris administration and reset how our country looks at tobacco and nicotine policy to improve public health for all Americans.
There is good news as youth usage of tobacco is at a 25-year low, but the top three most popular brands among American students who vape are illicit vapes from China. Industry analysts have called on the new FDA and CTP to reform the authorization process which would streamline the process to bring new innovative, alternative nicotine products to the market. This would go far to help adults who choose to smoke a less harmful alternative to make the switch from cigarettes and undercut the illicit Chinese vape market.
To further address the Chinese illicit vape problem, the Trump administration could empower the “Joint Task Force” and direct agencies to take strong action to fight illicit Chinese vapes and publish a directory that would publicly state which products have authorization, those still under consideration, and those that have been denied authorization by the FDA and CTP.
To date, no such public list exists.
Just as the American people fired the Biden-Harris administration in November 2024, it should come to no one’s surprise that King was one of those let go last week.
The new administration’s FDA and CTP can restore trust in our government and public health system, eliminate a key funding source for the Chinese government, and “Make America Healthy Again.”