In response to this, the agency started receiving report about non compliant businesses. To this effect, 22 companies including both online retailers and retail outlets such as gas stations and convenience stores, have received warning letters. The recipients of these letters were asked to respond within 15 days.
Trump wants to end the FDA’s Regulatory Authority on Tobacco Products
Meanwhile, Trump’s budget request released last month, calls for the creation of an entirely new agency that would fall under the Department of Health and Human Services, in order to regulate tobacco products including e-cigarettes. Prior to this proposal, there didn’t seem to be much interest among lawmakers to make such a change, however in 2019, the director of Trump’s Domestic Policy Council Joe Grogan, did say that he didn’t see the point in tobacco being regulated by the FDA.
“FDA regulates drugs, which help people. … It regulates devices, which help people. Tobacco has no redeeming qualities,” said Grogan last November. Meanwhile, the budget request pointed out that this change would give the FDA commissioner to “focus on its traditional mission of ensuring the safety of the nation’s food and medical supply.”
According to this proposal, the commissioner leading the suggested tobacco regulations agency would be someone, who like the FDA commissioner, has to be confirmed by the Senate “in order to increase direct accountability and more effectively respond to this critical area of public health concern.”
In contrast the person currently in charge of tobacco regulations is the director of the Center for Tobacco Products. Given that this is an FDA department, the director role doesn’t require Senate confirmation.
Read Further: CBS7
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