Prevention Matters

The Department of Labor recently announced that it is considering whether the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA)should establish a health standard for airborne infectious agents in health care settings and numerous other worksites. Such a standard would require some  employers to establish a comprehensive infection control program as well as control measures to protect employees from exposures to airborne pathogens that can cause significant disease


"OSHA is concerned about the ability of employees to continue to provide health care and other critical services without unreasonably jeopardizing their health," the department said in a recent regulatory notice. "...Health care workers and workers in related occupations or who are exposed in other high-risk environments are at increased risk of contracting tuberculosis, SARS, and other airborne infectious diseases which are spread through respiratory secretions which are exhaled or expelled though coughing, sneezing, etc. and can be transmitted through a variety of exposure routes."

In addition to health care, the agency listed other worksites where such control measures might be necessary:  emergency responses, correctional facilities, homeless shelters, drug treatment programs,  laboratories which handle materials that may be a source of pathogens, and to pathologists, coroners’ offices, medical examiners, mortuaries.

Congress has given the Food and Drug Administration broad powers to regulate tobacco. So how should they go about regulating it? The FDA recently received oral testimony from non-profit groups across the nation. Partnership for Prevention threw in our two cents' worth as noted below:

• FDA needs to develop strong regulations that will prevent the abusive practices of the tobacco industry, such as the targeting of children and the manipulation of the product to make it more addictive.
• Partnership encourages the FDA to be as aggressive as possible in developing public health actions under your new authority regarding the retail environment, warning labels, packaging, advertising restrictions and other key provisions.
• New warning labels should be large, very graphic and explicit in nature, and prominently feature the 1-800 Quit Now number on all tobacco products and advertising. We encourage the FDA to learn from other countries that have implemented strong warning labels.
• We support the development of strong metrics for measuring impact. FDA will also need real-time monitoring systems so you quickly know the intended and unintended consequences of the regulations that are put in place. FDA needs to be assured that the tobacco industry is not circumventing the intent of the new rules.
• Partnership also encourages FDA to view these regulations as dynamic – FDA should operate on the assumption that changes in the regulations will be needed as new information is received about the impact, or lack of impact, of their regulatory actions.
• Proven harm reduction efforts (that is, preventing tobacco use and helping current tobacco users quit) must be a high priority. FDA must ensure that progress in reducing tobacco use accelerates, not slows, as a result of regulation.
• Finally, FDA regulation alone is not the “solution” to the tobacco problem in our country. We hope that FDA will work collaboratively with other Federal agencies and tobacco control partners. It is also critical that FDA make clear in all its work that this regulatory authority does not negate nor diminish the importance of comprehensive, well-funded national and state tobacco prevention and control programs.
  
  Thank you for the opportunity to comment.

The ink is barely dry on the law giving the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulatory authority over tobacco products. The specific tobacco rules haven’t even been written yet. That hasn’t stopped R.J. Reynolds, Lorillard and other tobacco companies from filing a lawsuit challenging the new law. The lawsuit, filed in tobacco-friendly Kentucky, seeks to overturn significant portions of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act dealing with tobacco product advertising, marketing and labeling.

The language of the Act was carefully drafted to stay within the boundaries of the First Amendment and to meet the objective of saving thousands of lives otherwise lost to smoking and other tobacco use. The advertising and marketing restrictions had a test run in 1996 as part of the FDA Tobacco Rule that was cleared by the US Department of Justice. Obviously, the tobacco companies are just “blowing smoke” as they have been for decades – choosing to ignore the suffering, disease and death they have caused children, adults and families throughout the United States and around the world.

Let’s not let the tobacco companies have the last say on this critical issue. Let your voice be heard that strong regulations protecting all Americans are long overdue. The FDA is accepting comments on the new regulations until September 29, 2009. Go to www.regulations.gov to support the call for strong regulatory protections on all tobacco products.


Diane Canova
Managing Senior Fellow
& Senior Program Officer

The Food and Drug Administration will create a 12-person advisory panel to guide the agency as it gears up to regulate the tobacco industry. It will advise the FDA on sensitive issues including the impact of menthol in cigarettes, the use of descriptors such as "light" on tobacco packages, and the marketing of smokeless tobacco.

The agency is seeking nominations for the panel members. Eight of the members will be experts in medicine, medical ethics science and tobacco technology, according to a press release from the FDA. Three members from the industry, who won't have voting power, will be taken from small and large tobacco manufacturing companies and tobacco farmers. There will be one person from the general public on the panel.

After a decade of wrangling on Capitol Hill, Congress has approved and President Obama has signed into law a bill giving the Food and Drug Administration the authority to regulate tobacco products. This has huge implications for the tobacco industry and for public health policy. Discussing those implications with us in this podcast is Dr. Corinne G. Husten, Partnership for Prevention's Executive Vice President and former Director of the Office of Smoking and Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. To listen to this podcast, click on the media player below. If you don't see a media player, click here.