Top FDA Official Says Regulators Should Consider Potential Benefits Of E-Cigarettes

The Congressional Quarterly (10/22, Siddons, Subscription Publication) reports that Mitch Zeller, head of the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Tobacco Products, said Wednesday that regulators have to consider the possible health benefits for smokers who transition to e-cigarettes. “If there is an opportunity to shift those unable or unwilling to quit from the most harmful form of nicotine delivery, to the least harmful form,” Zeller said, “then I think that we as regulators have an opportunity to explore what those options are. “