1. Rita Chappelle is an inconsequential public relations civil servant flack catcher whose job is to transmit the position of her employer. She has very little to do with deciding the substantive content of her agency's policy. I personally don't care what lands in her in-box or doesn't, but you should know that nobody in a policy making position will either. Unless it gets extremely abusive & threatening, in which case another federal agency will be made to care, as will the sender when they visit him/her. It's a routine part of her (and her clerical staff's) job to filter out crank calls and messages, of all sorts, of which this will be a minor part.
2. Invent your own imaginary boogeyman if you like, according to whatever internal emotional tides govern your own construct of how the world "really" works hidden over behind yonder tree, but the drivers for this are right in front of you, publicly announcing themselves, and there is nothing hidden about their reasons. They are the leaders of groups which proudly declare themselves on a mission for their own vision of social improvement, which happens to be: a crusade against anything related to, connected with, or resembling smoking or tobacco in any way whatsoever. And it tends to be especially distasteful from their point of view if there is a possibility someone might actually enjoy it. They are not about to suddenly be in the business of acknowledging anything to be maybe okay, let alone good in any way. That does nothing to enhance their "save the kids" fundraising appeals, grant awards, publicity, prestige, or emotional satisfaction of feeling they are "rescuing" the world from unsavory demons and monsters and remaking it to become ever more perfectly "safe" in ways it would not do so without the intervention of their noble public spirited zeal.
In other words, they are a lot like a number of individuals on this forum, only rather more literate, considerably more numerous, and realistically familiar with using the mechanisms of government authority. They also now have negotiated the support of one company which has decided to opt for the security of gradual decline within a quasi-publicly sanctioned monopoly position shutting out it's competitors, rather than function as a private competitive business at risk of being killed entirely by the political tide.
They are now recently joined by appointees in federal policy making positions who are much more strongly predisposed towards belief in the inherent good of government regulation (soon to include what kind of light bulbs you will be permitted to buy for example) and deep suspicion of anything occuring privately in an unregulated, unnapproved, uncontrolled manner, and they have longstanding politically friendly ties to, and a natural affinity for the world view of, the crusading "health" groups. There is some exercise of judgment and discretion involved in what the FDA chooses to take notice of and act upon; formerly it tended to interpret it's mandate somewhat more narrowly and responded to different priorities in opposition to the position of some of these groups, now it is disposed to take a broader more expansive view of its role and is more responsive to those groups' view of its proper priorities.
For the model of what is happening, I suggest looking at the Temperance Movement of the 1910's & 1920's lead by Carrie Nation & others, culminating in the constitutional prohibition of alcohol ("demon rum") into the 1930s. Frankly, even a number of members of this forum sound similar to it at times.