Statement of Jack E. Henningfield, Ph.D.
Vice President, Research and Health Policy
Pinney Associates, Bethesda, Maryland and
Professor of Behavioral Biology, Adjunct, and
Director of the Innovators Awards Program
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science
The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Before the The Health Education, Labor and Pension (Help) Committee
United States Senate Hearing on Senate Bill S.625
February 27, 2007
Thank you for the opportunity to testify on S.625, the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, that would provide “the Food and Drug Administration with effective authority to regulate tobacco products.” FDA regulation is not only the right thing to do, it is urgent. More than 4 million Americans have died prematurely since FDA asserted jurisdiction and issued its Final Rule to regulate cigarettes and smokeless tobacco in 1996. Although we have made modest progress in reducing tobacco use, I believe FDA regulation would have made the progress significantly greater. Furthermore, the tobacco industry is unleashing new products, new claims, and clandestinely modifying conventional products at a terrifying rate, with no plausibly-effective regulatory mechanism in sight, except for the approach embodied in the Senate Bill. Even the FTC has thrown in the towel and apparently given up on its own widely criticized and deeply flawed method of cigarette testing.
You can find the entire Henningfield Testimony here.