US - General: Democratic Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois has sent a
letter to US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner Robert Califf. In his letter, Durbin criticised the FDA’s failure to finish analysing its premarket tobacco product applications (PMTAs) and raised questions about the agency’s compliance with federal tobacco law. “Since FDA missed the court’s deadline two years ago, I have sent eight letters raising key questions about FDA’s regulatory review process and enforcement actions,” the lawmaker wrote. “It is unclear what – if anything – will finally prompt FDA to get its act together and take more seriously the risk of the tobacco industry addicting a new generation of kids.”