FDA! Stop Blocking Products That Help Smokers Quit

by Phil Kerpen, Contributing Author: Yesterday, the FDA's Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee held a terribly dissapointing vote that could seriously complicate efforts to put alternative products on the shelf to help cigarette smokers quit. This vote had little to do with the actual science behind these products, and everything to do with the internal politics of a bureacracy routinely one step behind on matters pertaining to consumer health.

During the height of the Ebola crisis in 2014, an article in the New York Post noted that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) "routinely drags its feet on the approval of products critical for the prevention or treatment of fatal diseases."

You may already know that the FDA's slow, bureaucratic, approval process too often delays potentially life-saving drugs – but the FDA's inefficiencies aren't just limited to drugs.

The Food and Drug Administration also drags its feet on approving new products that could potentially benefit consumers.

As President Trump continues scaling back regulations, the web of government red-tape within the FDA should be on the chopping block as well.

One product category that remains stuck in FDA purgatory is modified-risk tobacco devices, which were designed to provide consumers with an alternative to cigarettes that delivers nicotine without the products of combustion that are responsible for most of the health risks of smoking. Even though consumers in Canada, Europe, Russia, and other nations have the choice to purchase these products, the FDA has yet to approve devices that can potentially reduce smoking deaths.

It's time to drain the regulatory swamp at the FDA. I hope you will join me in demanding that the FDA give Americans more freedom to choose the drugs, foods, and products that they buy.

Tell the FDA to stop delaying new products from reaching consumer shelves!
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Phil Kerpen is president of American Commitment Foundation. Follow him at (@kerpen) and on Facebook. He is a contributing author at the ARRA News Service.

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