Washington (AP) – Food and Drug Administration The chief tobacco regulator was removed from his post on Tuesday, part of the scanning cuts at Federal health manufacturing This has eliminated many of the best experts in the country supervising food, drugs, vaccines and products containing nicotine.
The agency’s tobacco director Brian King informed his staff in an email: “It was with a heavy heart and a deep disappointment that I share, I was placed on administrative leave.”
Dozens of other employees of the FDA tobacco center also received opinions on Tuesday morning that they were dismissed, including two entire offices responsible for the drafting of new tobacco regulations and the definition policy.
“If you make the creation and drafting of the policy practically impossible, you eviscerate the role of the center,” said Mitch Zeller, the former FDA tobacco chief, in an interview. “From the point of view of public health, it has absolutely no sense.”
Elsewhere at the FDA, the entire press office was also notified. The senior officials who help supervise new medication exams and vaccines were also released, according to FDA staff who spoke under the guise of anonymity because they did not have permission to speak publicly.
King, who joined the agency in 2022, was vigorously criticized by the vaping of lobbyists for ordering the thousands of companies to remove their electronic cigarettes with fruit and candy on the market. During his stay at the FDA, a vapot for teenagers fell to a 10 -year hollow.
His dismissal comes a few days after The FDA vaccine chief, Dr. Peter Marks was forced to go out, citing the support of the Secretary of Health, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., at the “disinformation and lie” vaccine in his letter of resignation.
The latest changes mean that almost all the main FDA leaders supervising drugs, food, vaccines, medical devices and now tobacco products have turned in recent months, mainly by resignations and pensions.
Former FDA commissioner Robert Califf said in an online article that “history will see it as a huge error”.
“The FDA, as we know, is over, most managers with institutional knowledge and in -depth understanding of product development and safety are no longer used,” said Califf, who resigned at the end of the Biden administration.
The leadership vacuum cleaner comes as Kennedy moves to draw 3,500 FDA staff members And advance with plans to examine ultra -proposed food, infant vaccines, antidepressants and other long -established established products.
The wave of departures means entering FDA Commissioner Marty Makary – which was confirmed last week – inherits an agency without many of its best experts and a besieged workforce which was shaken by weeks of layoffs and a Chaotic process of returning to the office. Only a handful of FDA employees are people appointed by policies, with almost all the scientific exams and decisions of the agency supervised by career officials.
During his confirmation hearing, Makary told Senate legislators that he wanted to “make an assessment” of the recent layoffs of the agency.
Neither Makary nor Kennedy said much about how tobacco policy is part of their plan to “make America again healthy”. Despite historically low smoking rates, tobacco -related diseases remain the main cause of preventable death in the country, blamed for more than 490,000 per year.
In recent years, the FDA tobacco center has been besieged by criticism on all sides.
Politicians, parents and anti-Tobacco groups want the FDA to do more to eliminate unauthorized vaping products that can appeal to adolescents, many of which are imported from China. Tobacco and vaping companies say that the FDA has been too slow to approve more recent products for adult smokers – including electronic cigarettes – which generally have much lower risks than traditional cigarettes.
Under King, the FDA rejected applications for millions of flavored electronic cigarettes, citing insufficient data that products would help adult smokers. These refusals resulted in multiple proceedings against the FDA of vape manufacturers, one of which was pleaded before the Supreme court in December.
The VAPORT Technology Association, a group of industry, very critical of King’s leadership, said in a statement that its deletion “is the first step to correct the broken state of mind that has paralyzed the FDA and the Center for Tobacco Products in the past four years.”
The other recent departures of FDA leaders include:
– The assistant food commissioner Jim Jones, resigned in February after dozens of his employees were dismissed.
– Director of the FDA medication center, Dr. Patrizia Cavazzoni, who resigned a few days before President Donald Trump took office.
– The agency’s second rank, Dr. Namandje Bumpus, who resigned at the end of last year.
– Longtime director of FDA medical devices, Dr. Jeffrey Shuren, who retired last summer.
Many senior deputies and scientists have also withdrawn or resigned in recent weeks.
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