During a news conference June, 25, 2013 FDA commissioner Dr. Margaret Hanburg said that new tobacco products under FDA’s authority cannot come on the market without the FDA’s reviewing them first. Using this new authority the FDA has let two new cigarette brands be put on the market.
It was in 2009 that the FDA first gained this authority with the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. So now new cigarettes cannot come out on the market without first being okayed by the U. S. Food and Drug Administration.
The two new products are the Newport Non-Menthal Gold Box, Gold Box 100’s and Lorillard Tobacco Co. products. Because they are like the already approved products on the market, they do not raise any new questions regarding public health.
Because the applicant did not show adequately that the new product did not raise some new questions on the subject of public health four new tobacco products were not okayed for production.
It is important to note that “An FDA product order is not a finding by the FDA that the product is considered safe or safer than its predicate product, or less harmful in general,” he said. “In addition, the companies cannot say their products are ‘FDA-approved.'” said Mitchell Zeller, director of FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products. He continued with: “This does not mean that these products are less harmful or safer than cigarettes already on the market“. (Per US News Health)