FDA’s top tobacco official is removed from post in latest blow to health agency’s leadership

The Food and Drug Administration’s chief tobacco regulator has been removed from his post amid sweeping cuts at the agency and across the federal health workforce handed down Tuesday, according to people familiar with the matter.

In an email to staff, FDA tobacco director Brian King said: “It is with a heavy heart and profound disappointment that I share I have been placed on administrative leave.”

King was removed from his position and offered reassignment to the Indian Health Service, according to a person familiar with the matter who did not have permission to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Dozens of staffers in FDA’s tobacco center also received notices of dismissal Tuesday morning, including the entire office responsible for enforcing tobacco regulations.

King, who joined the agency in 2022, has been vigorously criticized by vaping lobbyists for ordering thousands of companies to remove their fruit and candy-flavored e-cigarettes from the market. During his time at FDA, teen vaping has fallen to a 10-year low.

His removal comes just days after FDA vaccine chief Dr. Peter Marks was forced out, citing health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s support for vaccine “misinformation and lies” in his resignation letter.

The latest changes mean that nearly all of FDA’s top leaders overseeing drugs, food, vaccines, medical devices and now tobacco products have resigned or retired in recent months.

The leadership vacuum comes as Kennedy moves to fire 3,500 FDA staffers and pushes ahead with plans to scrutinize ultra-processed foods, childhood vaccines, antidepressants and other long-established products.

The wave of departures means incoming FDA commissioner Marty Makary — who was confirmed last week— will inherit an agency without many of its top experts and a beleaguered workforce that has been rocked by weeks of layoffs and a chaotic return-to-office process. Only a handful of FDA employees are political appointees, with nearly all of the agency’s scientific reviews and decisions overseen by career officials.

Neither Makary nor Kennedy have said much about how tobacco policy fits into their plan to “Make America Healthy Again.” Despite historically low rates of smoking, tobacco-related diseases remain the nation’s leading preventable cause of death, blamed for more than 490,000 annually.

In recent years, the FDA’s tobacco center has been besieged by criticism from all sides including congressional lawmakers, anti-smoking advocates, and tobacco and vaping companies.

Politicians, parents and anti-tobacco groups want the FDA to do more to stamp out unauthorized vaping products that can appeal to teens, many of which are imported from China. Tobacco and vaping companies say the FDA has been too slow to approve newer products for adult smokers — including e-cigarettes — that generally carry much lower risks than traditional cigarettes.

Under King, the FDA rejected applications for millions of flavored e-cigarettes, citing insufficient data that the products would help adult smokers while not becoming popular with underage kids. Those rejections have resulted in multiple lawsuits against FDA from vape makers, including one that was argued before the Supreme Court in December.

The Vapor Technology Association, an industry group, has been running ads urging Trump to follow through on a campaign pledge he made to “save the flavored vaping industry.”

The FDA has authorized a handful of e-cigarettes for adults, mostly from major vaping brands owned by legacy tobacco companies, including R.J. Reynold’s Vuse and Altria’s Njoy.

Other recent FDA departures include:

— Deputy commissioner for foods, Jim Jones, who resigned in February after dozens of his staffers were fired.

— Director of FDA’s drug center, Dr. Patrizia Cavazzoni, who stepped down days before President Donald Trump took office.

— The agency’s second-ranking official. Dr. Namandje Bumpus, who resigned late last year.

— FDA’s longtime medical devices director, Dr. Jeffrey Shuren, who retired last summer.

Many deputies and senior scientists have also retired or stepped down in recent weeks.

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