02 Mar 2010. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Monday named its new tobacco advisory panel and said the group is preparing for its first meeting late this month, reports the Associated Press.

The Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee is to advise FDA on a range of issues. At its meeting on 30 and 31 March, the committee of 12, including three yet-to-be-named, nonvoting members representing the tobacco industry, will focus on the health impacts of menthol in cigarettes.

Chairing the committee is Dr. Jonathan Samet, director of the University of Southern California's Institute for Global Health and former director of the Institute for Global Tobacco Control at Johns Hopkins University.

The other members announced Monday are:

	Dr. Neal Benowitz, nicotine and addiction specialist at University of California, San Francisco;
	Dr. Mark Clanton, chief medical officer for American Cancer Society;
	Dr. Gregory Connolly, professor at Harvard University School of Public Health and tobacco control expert;
	Karen DeLeeuw, director of Center for Healthy Living and Chronic Disease Prevention at Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment;
	Dorothy Hatsukami, director of University of Minnesota Transdisciplinary Tobacco Use Research Center;
	Dr. Patricia Nez Henderson, vice president of Black Hills Center for American Indian Health;
	Jack Henningfield, vice president of research and health policy for consumer health company Pinney Associates; and
	Melanie Wakefield, director of Centre for Behavioural Research in Cancer at Cancer Council Victoria, a nonprofit in Australia.

The FDA won the authority in June 2009 to regulate tobacco products including banning certain products, limiting allowable nicotine and blocking labels such "low tar" and "light" meant to convey that certain products are less harmful. (pi)

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