An ethics watchdog group has filed a challenge against two members of the advisory committee for tobacco product safety, which is part of the newly formed Center for Tobacco Products (CTP) of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed a complaint with the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services, saying that Dr Neal Benowitz and Jack Henningfield should be disqualified because they are consultants for drug companies that make smoking cessation products. “Everybody hates the tobacco companies, but favouring the drug companies can’t be the answer,” said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics.
Jack E. Henningfield is an addiction expert; he holds a share of a patent in a nicotine gum product under development and is a vice president at Pinney Associates, a Bethesda, Md, consulting firm for drug companies, including GlaxoSmithKline. Dr Neal L. Benowitz, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, is a drug industry consultant on treatments to help people stop smoking. “I really don’t see any conflict,” Dr Benowitz said. “My involvement with pharmaceutical companies is aimed at reducing the risk of smoking, quitting smoking. The aim of the committee is also to reduce the adverse health consequences of tobacco use.”
The same two panellists were the targets of a challenge in March by the Altria Group, owner of Philip Morris, the nation’s largest tobacco company. The FDA rejected Altria’s complaint, saying it had selected qualified members and would manage any potential conflicts case by case as it did on other federal advisory committees. “Tobacco cessation drugs are not regulated by the Center for Tobacco Products,” Meghan Scott, an FDA spokeswoman, said. The new complaint came as a subcommittee of the panel, the Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee, prepared to meet to list the harmful constituents in tobacco products. In July, the full committee plans to consider whether the FDA should regulate, or perhaps even ban, menthol in cigarettes. The committee also plans to discuss how and whether the FDA should regulate smokeless tobacco products that dissolve in the mouth.  (pi)