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Thread: Bill Gives FDA Control Over Tobacco

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    Member Riven37's Avatar
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    Bill Gives FDA Control Over Tobacco

    THe Bill passes today, its now LAW:

    by Joanne Silberner

    All Things Considered, June 10, 2009 · Landmark tobacco legislation 10 years in the making is close to becoming law, giving the Food and Drug Administration clear jurisdiction over tobacco products. Tobacco is widely blamed for causing 443,000 deaths a year in the United States.

    President Obama, who has a history of being an occasional smoker, has expressed support for the bill. Once he signs it, the FDA will be authorized to regulate tobacco advertising and marketing and limit flavorings. But it won't be able to ban tobacco or the most popular flavoring, menthol, outright.


    The Struggle For Regulation

    In the mid-1990s, then-FDA commissioner David Kessler tried to claim power over tobacco. But in 2000, the Supreme Court said it would take an act of Congress to give FDA regulatory authority. Since then, legislators have been trying to do just that, without success.

    Kessler says the new bill allows the FDA to reduce the number of people who smoke and gives the agency broad new powers.

    "The legislation gives very strong controls to the FDA to regulate access, to regulate the product and to regulate advertising," he says. "The legislation was crafted in such a way that it creates a separate center within FDA and gives FDA resources. The tobacco industry ends up paying fees that, in 10 years, can end up being $600 million a year."

    The bill puts tobacco regulation into the hands of new commissioner Margaret Hamburg. At her Senate confirmation hearing earlier this year, Hamburg said her agency can handle it.

    "It has the scientific expertise, the regulatory experience and the public health mission to do so, and I think that if done successfully, we can reduce smoking and we can help make cigarettes less harmful."

    A Wide Range Of Input

    It's a good bill, says Steven Grossman, who has followed the FDA as a consultant to food and drug companies and who has worked on Capitol Hill.

    "A lot of people have had an opportunity to suggest changes to make it better," he says. "There's been a lot of thinking by a lot of very smart people on how it could be meaningful and how it could make a difference. There's nothing slapdash about this."

    The nation's biggest cigarette manufacturer, Philip Morris USA, followed construction of the bill closely. Philip Morris spokesperson Bob Phelps says the company recognizes that cigarettes can kill, and welcomes the new legislation.

    "We believe that FDA regulation could provide clear guidelines and oversight of products that could potentially reduce the harm caused by smoking," he says.

    But other tobacco manufacturers are not so happy. At the time the bill won its first committee vote, the No. 2 manufacturer, Lorillard, issued a statement saying that the company does not believe the FDA can handle tobacco regulations.

    "Congress should not be burdening the FDA with a new responsibility over a multibillion-dollar industry when it is failing presently to preserve its core mission," the statement said.
    Riven37
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    All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent. Thomas Jefferson

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    Alright so the group that can't protect of from tainted foods or chemicals like BPA is now in charge of tabacco products.... great.
    "I know you guys enjoy reading my stuff because it all makes sense. "

    Dumbest post ever! Thanks for the laugh PO!

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    As a former smoker, all I can say is, "it's about time!"

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    Member Riven37's Avatar
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    !

    Me to....it won't belong before America is smoke free


    Quote Originally Posted by SundayNiagara View Post
    As a former smoker, all I can say is, "it's about time!"
    Riven37
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    All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent. Thomas Jefferson

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    Member FMD's Avatar
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    And when Amerika is smoke free, and the govt loses that 'much needed tax revenue' from the sale of tobacco, then what happens to the taxes on other goods?

    Right now cigarettes are what? $3.50 pure tax? the state AND federal govt reap hundreds of BILLIONS a year in taxes from the sale of cigarettes.

    Then everyone quits, and the govt loses that funding, especially during a time when deficits are record breaking and the revenue is short, make it even shorter by eliminating cigarette taxes...

    Are you high?
    Willful ignorance is the downfall of every major empire in history.

    "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." - Mao, 1938

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    Member steven's Avatar
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    Cant wait until they start working on chocolate sugary drinks like coke and everything else that is causing all the obesity and heart disease in this country.

    Lets just let the goverment regulate everything we eat drink or ingest.
    People who wonder if the glass is half empty or full miss the point. The glass is refillable.

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    Unregistered Cgoodsp466's Avatar
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    To the Douch bag Gubment,its 824am and I have just Lite a Pall Mall Red and I am drinking a short scotch as I write this,soon I will drive to the supermarket in my car with out my seat belt on talking on my cell phone.To all of you anti smoking Nazi bastards kiss my backside. Oh its my friggin choice,. I love my country but I hate my Gubment.

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    Member Dumbfounded's Avatar
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    AHEM!!!
    The FDA will control big tobacco?

    The SAME FDA with a majority of board members who have financial interests in big phrama comanies with dozens of their drugs yanked off the market for killing and poisoning people in recent years?

    And over 100 FDA approved drugs in national class action lawsuits?

    The SAME FDA whose board members upon retirement go to work for the drug companies whose toxic waste was approved time and again for our "health?"

    The SAME FDA who's let Salmonella taint our food supplies?




    The FDA would serve big tobacco and NOT the American public by concealing all the bad, evil nasty stuff big tobacco does just like all the behind the scenes stuff big pharamaceuticals and corporate food manufacturing does to harm people-Business as usual.


    And the FDA USED to do an incredible job of HONEST regulation of the public's health but rotted slowly from within over the years like any other lumbering leviathan with so much authority.
    Last edited by Dumbfounded; June 13th, 2009 at 10:03 AM. Reason: added one word
    Coincidence is the word we use when we can't see the levers and pulleys.

    Emma Bull

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    I'm thinking about switching from cigarettes to weed.

    I never thought I'd see the day where weed would be less expensive.

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    The FDA is just another FAILED govt program, like the EPA, like SS, like the FED, like hell, like everything the govt does!
    "I know you guys enjoy reading my stuff because it all makes sense. "

    Dumbest post ever! Thanks for the laugh PO!

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    Member blockclubof1's Avatar
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    At first, I was thinking that the FDA might ban some of the nasty additives that the cig companies use in the product, that the result would be a more pure product, but ... didn't the FDA approve ASPERTAME for use in our foods???
    GO GREEN ... plant a garden!

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    Quote Originally Posted by SundayNiagara View Post
    As a former smoker, all I can say is, "it's about time!"
    I can't wait until drag racing is made illegal. It's noisy, wastes precious resources and I don't like it, so it shouldn't be allowed to exist.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Riven37 View Post
    Me to....it won't belong before America is smoke free
    I stopped riding my motorcycle so I think they should be banned. Look at how many deaths they cause yearly.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Effigy View Post
    I can't wait until drag racing is made illegal. It's noisy, wastes precious resources and I don't like it, so it shouldn't be allowed to exist.
    Not to mention all those harmful CO2 gases!!
    "I know you guys enjoy reading my stuff because it all makes sense. "

    Dumbest post ever! Thanks for the laugh PO!

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    Quote Originally Posted by Dougles View Post
    Not to mention all those harmful CO2 gases!!
    I believe he was talking about this kind of "drag" racing.




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