FDA Launches New Tobacco Control Center

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In an effort to reduce the hundreds of thousands of tobacco-related deaths in the United States each year, the new Center for Tobacco Products was launched this week by the Food and Drug

Administration.

The center was created to oversee the implementation of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, including establishment and enforcement of advertising and promotion restrictions, and reviewing premarket applications for new and modified-risk tobacco products.

It 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," according to an FDA news release.

The first director will be Dr. Lawrence Deyton, a clinical professor of medicine and health policy at George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences. Deyton is an expert on veterans' health issues, public health and tobacco use.

"I am eager for the challenge of leading the tobacco team at FDA," Deyton said in the news release. "This is a tremendous opportunity for us at FDA to work hand-in-hand with the CDC, researchers at the National Institutes of Health, and public health leaders in the states to make progress in combating tobacco use the leading cause of preventable death in the United States."

Each year, cigarette smoking causes an estimated 438,000 deaths, or about 1 of every 5 deaths, in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. On average, adults who smoke cigarettes die 14 years earlier than nonsmokers.