FDA To Launch Stakeholder Listening Series

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Center for Tobacco Products—charged with implementing the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (Tobacco Control Act) with the goal of reducing the tremendous toll of disease and death caused by tobacco use—will launch a Stakeholder Listening Series in 2010.

The Stakeholder Listening Series will help the FDACenter for Tobacco Products to more effectively implement the Tobacco Control Act by taking full advantage of the knowledge, ideas, feedback, and suggestions from all communities interested in and affected by tobacco product regulation.

Multiple stakeholder listening sessions will be held across the United States during the following 12 to 18 months. The sessions will be organized around the interests and perspectives of tobacco product regulation stakeholder communities, including, but not limited to:

• Public health and advocacy groups;
• State, local, and Tribal groups;
• Tobacco industry businesses and representatives;
• Tobacco growers;
• Retail establishments;
• Minority health organizations; and
• Academic and scientific organizations.

Each session will focus on topics of greatest interest to our primary stakeholder communities and will include presentations by topic experts and the FDA. The presentations will be followed by a facilitated discussion among participants. To enhance transparency, the FDACenter for Tobacco Products will publish summaries of the results of each session. The focus of each stakeholder session will be to assure good communication between FDA and our primary stakeholder communities. Potential topics for the Stakeholder Listening Series, may include, but are not limited to:

• Provisions and implementation of the Tobacco Control Act;
• Public health impacts related to tobacco product use, especially among youth;
• Tobacco product cessation and non-initiation strategies;
• Tobacco product registration and ingredient listings;
• Tobacco product labeling, marketing, and tobacco use by ethnic and minority groups;
• Marketing and advertising of tobacco products;
• Small tobacco businesses and retailers’ understanding of provisions and compliance with the Tobacco Control Act;
• Import and export provisions of the Tobacco Control Act; and
• Development of tobacco product standards.

The FDACenter for Tobacco Products will develop and publish a schedule for the Stakeholder Listening Series in the coming months. Stakeholders will be notified of the schedule when published and are encouraged to visit http://www.fda.gov/tobacco1 and sign-up for our e-mail notification service2 for regular updates.

The FDACenter for Tobacco Products looks forward to building a collaborative environment and open communications as we work to effectively implement the Tobacco Control Act and protect our kids from the dangers of tobacco.