US health community wrestling with idea of tobacco products’ relative risk

Changes in the marketplace have forced the public health community to wrestle with the idea that some tobacco products may pose less of a health risk than others do, according to an Associated Press story quoting the new head of the US Food and Drug Administration’s tobacco control efforts, Mitch Zeller.

Speaking at the 98th Annual Meeting and All-industry Conference of the Tobacco Merchants Association in Williamsburg, Virginia, Zeller, who took over as director of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products in March, told attendees the agency was making progress on a backlog of more than 3,500 new product applications.

He set out how the FDA planned to address the issue of menthol cigarettes and how it planned to regulate other tobacco products, including cigars and electronic cigarettes.