WASHINGTON (AP) — The main tobacco regulator of the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been removed from his position amid significant cuts in the agency and across the entire federal health workforce, according to individuals familiar with the matter.
In an email to staff, FDA’s director of tobacco, Brian King, expressed: “It is with great regret and deep disappointment that I share that I have been placed on administrative leave.”
His removal comes just days after the FDA’s vaccines chief, Dr. Peter Marks, was forced to resign, citing Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s support for “misinformation and lies” about vaccines in his resignation letter.
Why did Kennedy remove the head of the fight against smoking?
Dozens of FDA tobacco center employees also received layoff notices on Tuesday morning, including the entire office responsible for enforcing tobacco regulations.
King, who joined the agency in 2022, has been strongly criticized by the vaping lobby for ordering thousands of companies to remove their fruit and candy-flavored e-cigarettes from the market. During his time at the FDA, teenage vaping has dropped to its lowest level in ten years.
Neither Kennedy nor the new FDA commissioner, Marty Makary, have said much about how tobacco policy fits into their plan to “Make America Healthy Again”. Despite historically low smoking rates, tobacco-related diseases remain the leading preventable cause of death in the nation, responsible for more than 490,000 deaths per year.
In recent years, the FDA’s tobacco center has been besieged by criticism from all sides, including lawmakers, anti-tobacco activists, and tobacco and vaping companies.
Politicians, parents, and anti-tobacco groups want the FDA to do more to eliminate unauthorized vaping products that may appeal to teenagers, many of which are imported from China. Tobacco and vaping companies say the FDA has been too slow to approve new products for adult smokers, including e-cigarettes, which generally pose much lower risks than traditional cigarettes.
With King, the FDA rejected requests for millions of flavored e-cigarettes, citing insufficient data that the products would help adult smokers without becoming popular among minors. These rejections have resulted in multiple lawsuits against the FDA by vaping manufacturers, including one that reached the Supreme Court in December.
The Vapor Technology Association, an industry group, has been running ads urging Trump to fulfill a campaign promise he made to “save the flavored vaping industry.”
The FDA has authorized a handful of electronic cigarettes for adults, mainly from large vaping brands owned by traditional tobacco companies, including Vuse by R.J. Reynolds and Njoy by Altria.
Who are the leaders that have left the FDA?
The latest changes mean that almost all of the top leaders at the FDA overseeing drugs, food, vaccines, medical devices, and now tobacco products have resigned or retired in recent months.
The leadership vacuum occurs as Kennedy - who was a drug addict in his youth and was arrested by authorities for heroin possession - moves forward with the dismissal of 3,500 FDA employees and continues with plans to examine ultra-processed foods, childhood vaccines, antidepressants, and other long-established products.
The wave of departures means that the new FDA commissioner, who was confirmed last week, will inherit an agency without many of its top experts and a beleaguered workforce that has been shaken by weeks of layoffs and a chaotic return-to-office process. Only a handful of FDA employees are political appointees; nearly all agency scientific reviews and decisions are overseen by career officials.
Other recent FDA departures include:
- The food subcommissioner, Jim Jones, who resigned in February after dozens of his employees were fired.
- The director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, Dr. Patrizia Cavazzoni, who resigned days before President Donald Trump took office.
- The agency’s second-highest-ranking official, Dr. Namandje Bumpus, who resigned at the end of last year.
- The long-time director of the FDA’s medical devices, Dr. Jeffrey Shuren, who retired last summer.
Many deputy directors and high-level scientists have also retired or resigned in the last few weeks.