Symposium Introduction: A Decade of the Tobacco Control Act: Progress, Setbacks, and the Future of Tobacco Control

Abstract

The landmark symposium, A Decade of the Tobacco Control Act: Progress, Setbacks, and the Future of Tobacco Control, organized by the Public Health Law Center and held in conjunction with the 2019 National Conference on Tobacco or Health, assessed the first 10 years of federal tobacco regulation. In this introduction to the symposium, the Public Health Law Center’s executive director provides the context for insights by prominent experts from government, health organizations, and academia, acknowledging the mixed record of U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulation to date and suggesting that the agency’s ultimate success or failure will be determined by the answers to three fundamental, but still unresolved, questions: What is the true goal of federal regulation? How boldly or cautiously will the FDA approach that goal? And who will the agency serve? The answers to those questions, he argues, will determine the prospects for progress in controlling the nation’s leading cause of preventable death.