From Reason:
Top Story: FDA Nominee Scott Gottlieb's Senate Hearing
President Trump's
nominee for head of the FDA, Scott Gottlieb, appeared before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions on April 5. In his introductory statement,
Gottlieb said, "Whether it is combustible tobacco or dangerously addictive opioid drugs - we have the opportunity to help consumers move to less risky alternatives."
Sen. Bill Cassidy asked about shifting consumers toward reduced risk tobacco products products and the less-than-open stance the FDA's Center for Tobacco Products has taken toward less harmful alternatives to cigarettes. Gottlieb said, "I think Congress had great foresight in envisioning the opportunity for reduced harm products to transition smokers off of combustible tobacco onto reduced harm products."
He added, "these are ultimately empirical questions that can be adjudicated in the proper regulatory context. An e-cigarette, for example, or vaping products, might be a good smoking cessation tool, an e-cigarette flavor like chocolate chip cookie dough might not be."
In response to questioning by Sen. Patty Murray on e-cigarette flavorings, youth use, and whether he would weaken the FDA's "deeming rule." Gottlieb said he wasn't going to tolerate a rise in adolescent smoking and said he was committed to proper implementation of the Tobacco Control Act. He added it was an empirical question about when a reduced harm product can be a useful tool for transitioning people off of combustible and when it might be a gateway to adolescent smoking.
Asked if he was in favor of banning flavorings or marketing that "target our kids," Gottlieb said, "Certainly marketing practices that target kids, as I understand, are already illegal under the scope of the law. I think the issues of the flavoring and all these other issues that deal with the specific qualities of the vaping product are those kinds of empirical questions that I think career staff should be adjudicating in the Center and I want to provide them the proper support to make these judgments and make sure that we're finding a way to fulfill Congress's intent here that there should be reduced harm products available to consumers to transition them off of combustible cigarettes."
