U.S. Sen. Richard Burr argued regulating tobacco would weaken the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
In a 15-minute speech on the floor of the Senate this afternoon, the Winston-Salem Republican called the FDA the "gold standard" among the world's regulatory agencies for protecting the public health.
Giving the agency responsibility for regulating tobacco would strain its staff, he argued.
"We're going to put more junior employees ... on applications of drugs," he said. "Maybe a young reviewer either delays the approval of that device or that pharmaceutical or makes the wrong decision because the senior reviewer has gone over to do tobacco," he said.
He said the bill would contradict the FDA's mission to protect the public health, since there is no healthy way to use tobacco.
He also criticized a grandfather clause that would leave existing tobacco products untouched, possibly hurting new products such as smokeless tobacco that might reduce smoking rates.
Burr and Sen. Kay Hagan oppose the bill, but only nine other senators joined with them to vote against cloture on the legislation today.
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Re: Burr: Tobacco bill would weaken FDA
I couldn't agree more on mostly all counts.
As for your other point, I won't cry buckets if Burr wins. But I will make him as moderate as possible along the way.
Kay is already doing a better job at that in months than Burr did in years under Bush/Rove's thumb. He'll come around, or he'll lose.