FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, who raised national alarms about teenage vaping, is resigning
Scott Gottlieb, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration , appearing before a Senate subcommittee hearing.
His initiative has won praise for shining a spotlight on a national problem. But it has also been criticized by some anti-tobacco activists as being too weak and by e-cigarette supporters as being too aggressive. Some libertarians and conservatives recently complained his approach represented “regulatory panic” and went against Trump’s anti-regulatory agenda.
Gottlieb was a former top FDA official during the George W. Bush administration. When he was out of government, he worked as a venture capitalist and consultant to drug and health care companies. He stood out in the anti-regulatory Trump administration, where some officials such as Scott Pruitt, the former head of the Environmental Protection Agency, appeared intent on reducing the clout of the departments and agencies they headed.
Gottlieb spent much of his confirmation hearing talking about the opioid epidemic – comparing it to public health emergencies caused by the Ebola and Zika viruses – while acknowledging the FDA’s own unwitting contribution by granting approvals for the painkillers. During his tenure, the FDA engineered the removal of the opioid medication Opana ER from the market, the first time the agency requested that action on public health grounds.
“It’s disheartening, if you look at the last two years of the agency’s work with supplements,” Cohen said. “It’s inaction. It’s lack of forward motion. It’s maybe treading water.” In July 2017, a few months after becoming commissioner, Gottlieb unveiled a comprehensive tobacco blueprint calling for reduced nicotine levels in cigarettes. But he also delayed for several years a tough new regulation for e-cigarettes, delighting vaping interests and infuriating anti-tobacco groups and some Democratic lawmakers.
“His strong words have changed the public debate but until they are translated into enforceable rules, the epidemic will only grow worse,” he said.
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