{credit}NIH{/credit}
Most people stopped doubting the dangers of tobacco long ago. And yet, tobacco products continue to adorn the checkout kiosks of convenience stores and appear in the pages of magazines. The question is: which of these products should be allowed and which should not? It’s no longer a theoretical question: the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was granted the power to regulate these products four years ago.
More research will help the FDA make tough decisions in this area, says Helen Meissner, the director of the Tobacco Regulatory Science Program at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH). Meissner is leading a joint effort with the FDA to study how to bring science-based regulation to the manufacturing, marketing and distribution of products such as cigarettes. On 19 September, the two agencies announced that they would grant a total of $53 million to 14 research teams working on tobacco-related projects across the US. Nature Medicine asked Meissner about the newly formed Tobacco Centers of Regulatory Science (TCORS) and the challenges of government-funded research in this space.
What are the biggest research goals of this new funding effort, broadly speaking?
The FDA [needs] to understand tobacco products in order to review tobacco products. They need product standards. They need to know how best to monitor compliance and enforcement, say with advertising or youth access. And they also need information on the best ways to communicate about tobacco products through media and education campaigns.
And how will the 14 centers come together and communicate?
They will be coming together through grantee meetings, so there will be collaborative activities across the centers. Although each is independent and they have different seams—as I mentioned they cover different areas—there is synergy as well across the centers. So that is the role of NIH: to convene the groups.