Posted on 09/26/2023 4:27:10 PM PDT by nickcarraway
The White House Cancer Moonshotopens in a new tab or window recently announced new efforts to "End Cancer as We Know It." Yet, the announcementopens in a new tab or window includes no mention of the FDA, which is not only directed at protecting and promoting the public health but also has existing powers that could reduce cancer deaths and harms more rapidly than any existing or planned Cancer Moonshot initiatives.
The Moonshot announcement stresses the fact that smoking is the "biggest single driver of cancer deaths in this country." But its newly announced anti-smoking measures are remarkably weak and indirect, focusing largely on increasing cessation services and related smoker awareness. In particular, one new initiative would provide $15 million over 5 years to help increase implementation and enforcement of policies to increase awareness of smoking cessation services among disadvantaged smokers or prohibit the sale of menthol or other flavored tobacco products. But $15 million over 5 years is a drop in the bucket compared to the tobacco industry's expenditures of more than $7.5 billionopens in a new tab or window per year to promote cigarettes.
Moreover, any new efforts to support state and local policies to prohibit flavored tobacco products would be largely unnecessary if FDA implemented its long-overdue final rulesopens in a new tab or window to ban menthol cigarettes (the only added-flavor cigarettes currently allowed under federal law) and prohibit cigars with added flavors. By reducing youth initiation of smoking and prompting many existing smokers to quit, those two rules could sharply reduce cancer and cancer deaths. A recent University of Michigan studyopens in a new tab or window, for example, estimated that banning menthol cigarettes, by itself, would prevent 650,000 people from dying from smoking over the next 40 years -- and roughly one-thirdopens in a new tab or window of those prevented deaths would have been caused by smoking-caused cancers. But FDA has not received the support it needs from the White House, either through the Cancer Moonshot or otherwise, to get those final rules issued.
The absence of any mention of FDA or any support for the FDA rules to banopens in a new tab or window menthol cigarettes and prohibitopens in a new tab or window added-flavor cigars in the new Moonshot announcement is odd given that FDA has otherwise been mentioned as a participant since the Cancer Moonshot was reignitedopens in a new tab or window in February 2022. A March 2022 fact sheetopens in a new tab or window even mentioned the planned FDA rules to ban menthol cigarettes and added-flavor cigars as a major part of the Moonshot. In addition, the federal Unified Agendaopens in a new tab or window of upcoming government regulatory action has included references to the two rules for years, and the most recent Unified Agenda said that the menthol cigarette and flavored cigar final rules would be issued by August 2023.
However, FDA missed that August deadline and has subsequently stated only that it expects to issue the final rules "in the coming monthsopens in a new tab or window." The Cancer Moonshot says nothing about this inexplicable delay in effective federal anti-cancer measures. Nor has the White House, FDA, or the Office of Management and Budget (which oversees federal regulatory efforts) provided any new deadlines or other assurances that the final rules will actually be implemented soon or at all.
If the White House and its Cancer Moonshot were truly serious about preventing and reducing cancer, they would have not only ensured that these two FDA rules were already fully implemented but would have also supported additional FDA anti-smoking rule-making that would reduce cancer deaths and harms even more quickly and sharply. Most notably, an FDA-coordinated studyopens in a new tab or window found that a new rule to reduce nicotine levels to non-addictive levels in cigarettes would, at a minimum, save millions of lives through reducing smoking initiation and increasing quitting. In addition, since fall 2017 the Unified Agenda has repeatedly said that FDA planned to issue a nicotine-reduction ruleopens in a new tab or window. But its announced date for issuing just the preliminary proposed rule has been repeatedly postponed, with the nicotine rule falling completely off the Agenda between spring 2019opens in a new tab or window and spring 2022opens in a new tab or window; and implementing such a rule has never been part of the Cancer Moonshot. The most recent Unified Agendaopens in a new tab or window says the proposed nicotine reduction rule will be issued before the end of this year. But if that were a real deadline that FDA was actually going to meet -- or if FDA were actually going to issue its final rules on menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars soon -- one would think the Cancer Moonshot would have at least mentioned that as a major upcoming success in federal efforts to reduce cancer deaths and harms.
Unfortunately, the White House Cancer Moonshot's failure to support these FDA anti-smoking rules is nothing new. Since 2009, when the Tobacco Control Actopens in a new tab or window first provided FDA with extensive powers and resources to regulate cigarettes and other tobacco products and their labeling, marketing, distribution, and sale, no U.S. president, vice president, or major White House official has publicly expressed any support for any FDA rulemaking to prevent or reduce smoking or overall tobacco use deaths and harms.
Thanks in large part to this absence of White House supportopens in a new tab or window, FDA has not yet been able to implement any substantive rule that would significantly reduce smoking or overall tobacco-caused deaths and harms. Without such support (or a statutory or court-ordered deadline), it is extremely difficult for FDA to get a draft proposed or final rule successfully through the federal bureaucracy's behind-the-scenes prior review and clearance process. The Unified Agenda listings stating that FDA would issue final rules to ban menthol cigarettes and added-flavor cigars in August 2023 suggested that FDA was finally getting the White House support it needs to take effective action. But those missed deadlines and the absence of any reference to those or any other FDA anti-smoking rules in the subsequent Cancer Moonshot announcement suggests otherwise. It is also especially troubling that the White House Moonshot highlights a new initiative to support state and local policies to ban flavored tobacco products when the White House could simply ensure that FDA quickly did that nationwide instead.
This 14-year and counting absence of any major FDA tobacco control rule is a national tragedy. It is difficult to imagine any public health or policy justification for FDA not using (or not being allowed to use) its extensive tobacco control powers and resources, not only to reduce cancer deaths and harms more sharply and quickly than any other Moonshot initiative but also to prevent and reduce enormous amounts of other unnecessary smoking-caused death, disability, disease, and other harms and costs.
Eric N. Lindblom, JD,opens in a new tab or window is a former official at FDA's Center for Tobacco Products and a long-time tobacco control policy analyst. He currently serves as an independent consultant to researchers, lawyers, and investors on tobacco-related issues and is a senior scholar at Georgetown Law's O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law.
The stupid is very strong in this one - Yoda
In fact, he is full of more crap than a Christmas Turkey
The FDA (Federal De-Population Association) will take this as far as they can.
Dr. Jill hasn’t cured Cancer yet?
To much money, to many companies vested in chemo which is worst than the disease often times. There is just to much greed and corruption to allow a true cure IMO. I have some stock in a small company that is making very encouraging strides in Blood cancer therapy, still Phase one testing and very promising. I suspect they will be bought out by large Pharma and the treatment will never see the light of day. That or Pharma will just buy off the FDA not to approve it.
Our crap food and obesity probably cause more cancer than smoking. Instead of badgering people about what they eat or smoke the research should be directed towards treatment. Cancer treatment is remarkably stone age for as advanced as our medical care is supposed to be.
Nixon promised an end to cancer back in the early ‘70s. This is just another Biden plagiarism.
The Crime Fam had a Cancer Foundation grift going back in the day.
There is no money in a cure. All the money is in the treatment.
I don’t know why, but I have a mysterious craving for “Opens in a new tab or window.” Where is that sold?
wasnt this a west wing episode?
not very original
Excuse me. But I don't think you know what the heck you are talking about.
As a (blood) cancer survivor from several years ago and going to the #1 cancer center in the country (MD Anderson), I can tell you that the Moonshot program has advanced research and treatments exponentially.
In fact, at MD Anderson, one of the Ph.D. researchers won a Nobel medical prize for a new immunotherapy treatment protocol only a few years ago. In fact, most of the latest treatments ARE NOT chemo. They are targeted immunotherapy or genetic modification therapy.
Same as when GWB said we need to land on Mars.
BTW, a very little known fact is the moon landing was already in the early planning stages before JFK became President.
He just took credit for it.
The reality is most doctors don’t badger patients about what they eat at all.
Yes there has been some progress in blood cancer treatments, t cell and what not. Much less so solid tumor. My mother had many quality months left had she not opted for chemo for uterine cancer. Chemo complications took her well before the cancer would have. Do your own research on the drug Aduhelm. Just a tiny blip of FDA incompetence / corruption to get that one approved. Here is something very troubling. There is a revolving door of high level FDA employees leaving for big Pharma jobs. It must have pained NPR to put out this report. Wouldnt happen in 2023. I’m glad you had success with your illness. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/09/28/495694559/a-look-at-how-the-revolving-door-spins-from-fda-to-industry
Bet it's not anymore...
It’s friendly to Deep State...
“Note: MedPage Today LLC is the owner and publisher of MedPage Today. Everyday Health Group is the parent and sole owner of MedPage Today, LLC, and Ziff Davis is the parent of Everyday Health Group.”
https://money.cnn.com/quote/quote.html?symb=ZD
Nuff said.
I'm sorry about your Mom. Cancer can be a horrible way to go, but on the other hand, I've sometimes heard it referred to as a "compassionate death." Why such a statement, you ask? Because it gives you one last chance to finish up things you otherwise might not have time to do (as in an instant fatal heart attack).
I don't mean to demean your Mom's pain and suffering. Chemo can be rough, and cancer even worse. As I commented previously, it gave me time to get things right and accept my path to death on this earth. I am eternally grateful for that. It certainly changed my life -- for the better.
The next thing I would tell ANY cancer patient is to get a second opinion from a top cancer center. There are probably less than 10 of those in the country. I was diagnosed and started treatment in a large regional hospital. I didn't have much choice as I was confined to a hospital bed and could not travel. As soon as I was able to move outside the halls of a hospital, I took myself to MD Anderson.
MD Anderson was an incredible experience. The diagnostic and treatment options are orders of magnitude better than any local onc doctor can provide. And then, there's the onc doc. Most are very good, but they are human, and they don't have access to all the tools -- tools like onsite research and the overall knowledge/experience. Plus, they can miss a putt because they are human.
I began my treatment journey with chemo, and in my case, it worked. By the time I was able to get to the real experts, I was moving toward remission. BUT, had I been diagnosed and treated from the very beginning my MDA doc would have had me on a BTK inhibitor as a trial drug (no trials ever discussed by locals). That drug was subsequently FDA approved and was the first of many drugs in the class.
I have gone to MDA for several years and always strike up conversations with other patients. A very large percentage of those people end up at MDA because their diagnosis locally was less than perfect (or worse), thus leading to less than optimum treatment.
Again. No matter what type or stage of cancer, if you are diagnosed locally, then, at a minimum, take yourself to a top cancer center for another opinion. That's the message.
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