No smoking gun

Executive Summary

FDA Commissioner Henney "was away from the FDA during most of the investigation" of the tobacco industry, former agency head David Kessler, MD, said Jan. 16 on National Public Radio's "The Diane Rehm Show." Kessler, promoting his memoirs describing the agency's efforts to regulate the tobacco industry during his 1990-1997 tenure, was responding to a caller's inquiry about Henney's past and present role in the investigation. "After I left, the battle shifted elsewhere: to the courts, to the Department of Justice," Kessler said. "It was beyond FDA. We had taken it as far as we could." Henney lost her bid to continue as commissioner two days later (1see related story, p. 3)