Obama urged to intercede on menthol

The African American Tobacco Control Leadership Council (AATCLC) has asked President Barack Obama to direct the Food and Drug Administration to issue a proposed rule to remove all flavored tobacco products, including mentholated cigarettes, from the marketplace.

The council said that the president’s direct intercession would help prevent the deaths of some of the 45,000 black people who died every year in the US from tobacco-related diseases.

Flavored tobacco products (including e-cigarettes, little cigars, and cigarillos) were cheap, sold individually, and very popular especially among African American, Latino, Asian American, Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander youth.

‘The FDA has already done its part by preparing the groundwork for issuing such a proposed rule,’ the letter said…

‘The Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) redlining of the menthol and flavors text in the new FDA deeming rule was ill-informed, at best.

‘The FDA has collected and analyzed all the evidence related to flavored products, as reflected in the deleted deeming text. These deletions demonstrate that the FDA attempted to protect the public health as it was mandated to do by the 2009 Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (FSPTCA). Because this groundwork has already been completed, issuing a new rule can be accomplished quickly.’

Copies of the letter were sent to: Sylvia Mathews Burwell, Secretary of Health and Human Services; Dr. Robert Califf, Commissioner, Food and Drug Administration; Shaun Donovan, Director, Office of Management and Budget; Cecilia Muñoz, Director, White House Domestic Policy Council; Mitch Zeller, Director, Center for Tobacco Products, FDA; Michelle Obama, First Lady.

The full text of the August 10 letter is at: http://www.savingblacklives.org/letter-to-president-obama/.