The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today launched its new Center for Tobacco Products in an historic effort to curb the hundreds of thousands of deaths caused by those products each year.
The Center will oversee the implementation of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act signed by President Obama in June 2009. The FDA's responsibilities under the law include setting performance standards, reviewing premarket applications for new and modified risk tobacco products, and establishing and enforcing advertising and promotion restrictions.
Lawrence Deyton, M.D. M.S.P.H., an expert on veterans' health issues, public health, tobacco use, and a clinical professor of medicine and health policy at George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, will serve as the Center's first director.
"We are thrilled to announce Dr. Deyton's appointment as director of the Center for Tobacco Products and look forward to him joining the agency," said FDA Commissioner Margaret A. Hamburg, M.D. "He is the rare combination of public health expert, administrative leader, scientist, and clinician."
Before coming to the FDA, Deyton was Chief Public Health and Environmental Hazards Officer for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. His responsibilities there included oversight of the VA's public health programs including tobacco use, the health of women veterans, the long-term health consequences of military service, and the VA's emergency preparation and response. He was selected after a national search.
The FDA's Center for Tobacco Products, located on the FDA's White Oak Campus in Silver Spring, Md., will use the best available science to guide the development and implementation of effective public health strategies to reduce the burden of illness and death caused by tobacco products.
To implement the program, the FDA will start with $5 million from the fiscal year 2009 budget to establish the necessary administrative functions for the Center. As set forth in the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, funding for the Center and other activities related to the regulation of tobacco will come from user fees paid by manufacturers and importers of tobacco products.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cigarette smoking causes an estimated 438,000 deaths, or about 1 of every 5 deaths, each year. On average, adults who smoke cigarettes die 14 years earlier than nonsmokers.
"As many Americans know, freedom from tobacco dependence is the key to a healthy future," said Assistant Secretary for Health Howard Koh, M.D., M.P.H. "Dr. Deyton's public health and tobacco cessation experience will be invaluable as the Department of Health and Human Services and the Food and Drug Administration take on this challenge."