Brian King has been removed as director of the FDA Center for Tobacco Products (CTP), the FDA office responsible for regulation of tobacco and nicotine products, including vapes.
King was unpopular among vaping and harm reduction advocates, who saw him as a roadblock to replacing smoking with low-risk non-combustible nicotine products.
The removal of King from the FDA also could mark the first step by President Trump to keep his campaign promise to “save flavored vaping.” Much will depend on who the administration and new FDA Commissioner Martin Makary choose to replace Brian King, and whether they decide to shift the tobacco office's focus and recognize vaping as a valuable tool to prevent smoking death and disease.
King has been a staunch opponent of vaping since his previous job at the CDC Office on Smoking and Health, and was probably chosen for his CTP leadership role in 2022 by former FDA commissioner Robert Califf precisely because of his vaping antipathy. Califf too was antagonistic toward vaping.
HHS cuts 20,000 employees, including 3,500 at FDA
Dozens of other CTP staffers were also laid off, including the entire Office of Regulations, according to an AP story published earlier today. The moves were part of the Trump administration’s reduction in force initiative at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), announced last week by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Kennedy said the department will downsize from 82,000 to 62,000 employees, including 10,000 voluntary retirements and separations, and 10,000 firings. The reductions include 3,500 jobs at the FDA, and 2,400 at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
King was placed on administrative leave and offered a job with a regional office of the Indian Health Service (IHS—a separate HHS agency), according to the New York Times. Anti-vaping activist Stanton Glantz reported that CTP Office of Science director Matthew Farrelly was also offered an IHS position. According to NBC News, other high-ranking HHS officials were also offered reassignments to the IHS, apparently as a way to force their resignations.
One of the smallest FDA offices, the CTP had about 1,000 employees before the current wave of layoffs. The tobacco office—including employee salaries—is 100 percent funded by tobacco industry user fees; it receives no tax dollars.
Brian King: champion of whack-a-mole vape enforcement
As much as anyone at the FDA, Brian King fought to keep flavored vapes unavailable to the nicotine-consuming public, despite mounting evidence that vaping products in flavors other than tobacco are effective in helping people who smoke switch from cigarettes to vapes.
King pressured the CTP Office of Science to reverse its recommendation to authorize some menthol vaping products, and clung to the agency’s unproven claim that flavored products were uniquely attractive to adolescents. It was not until January 2025 that King finally allowed the agency to authorize nicotine products in flavors other than tobacco and menthol—and those were ZYN nicotine pouches, not vaping products.
As CTP director, King’s primary regulatory innovation was forming a multi-agency enforcement task force with the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to intercept and seize shipments of unauthorized disposable vapes.
During his time at the CTP, the office issued more than 1,300 warning letters to manufacturers, distributors and retailers of nicotine products (mostly vapes) not authorized by the FDA, and sought huge fines against more than 200 others. In several cases, King’s CTP teamed up with the DOJ, using the threat of injunctions to force small vape manufacturers out of business.
But despite his enforcement zeal, flavored disposable vapes grew to dominate the convenience store/gas station segment of the vaping market during King’s tenure.
King seemed unable to understand that the CTP could never enforce enough to make up for its prohibition of flavored vaping products that people like. As of now—almost three years since King took the CTP helm—the FDA has authorized just nine e-liquid-based vaping devices (one of which has been discontinued by the manufacturer), and about two-dozen tobacco- and menthol-flavored pod and cartridge refills.
The CTP has not allowed the legal sale of a single product in a flavor other than tobacco or menthol, a single bottled e-liquid, a single refillable vaping device, or a single product not manufactured by a Big Tobacco-owned company.
While the majority of marketing denial orders (MDOs) received by American vape manufacturers were issued before Brian King arrived at the CTP, about 100 companies have had products denied during his tenure.
A 2022 report by the Reagan-Udall Foundation concluded that the CTP had failed in its primary role as a product regulator.
Who will run the FDA Center for Tobacco Products next?
The FDA is now being led by Dr. Martin Makary, whose positions on vaping regulation are not well known. Makary, who reportedly was sworn in without fanfare last week, will presumably have input on King’s replacement at the CTP.
During his Senate confirmation hearing, Makary seemed to agree with Florida Republican Senator Ashley Moody, who wants more enforcement against “illegal Chinese vapes.”
“There are a few things the FDA can do to try to address this problem,” Makary told the senator. “First of all, the Office of Inspections and Investigation has a lot of people with guns, and they do enforcement and raids, and we need—in collaboration with [the Department of Justice] and other areas of law enforcement—to try to address this problem of illegal products on our market.”
Makary's response seemed to indicate that he favors more Brian King-style enforcement. If he maintains that stance, it may indicate that Trump intends to give his campaign donors from the tobacco industry what they want: protection from disposable vape and open-system competitors. Corporations that donate millions of dollars to political candidates expect something for their money, and the tobacco companies are lobbying both Congress and the White House to keep them in the nicotine product driver’s seat.
If King is replaced by a CTP director favored by Altria and R.J. Reynolds, vaping consumers could get more of the same—perhaps with some token authorizations of flavored e-liquids thrown in.
But for most vaping consumers and the independent vaping industry, the promise of “saving flavored vaping” means much more: a complete reorientation of the CTP toward responsible regulation.
That means giving manufacturers actual product standards they must meet to submit successful premarket tobacco applications (PMTAs), and reasonable wait times for application decisions.
To keep his promise, Trump must demand the FDA study all applicable science that has a bearing on agency decisions—not cherry-picking evidence to suit predetermined outcomes.
The FDA must publicly state that vaping and other non-combustible nicotine products are much safer than smoking, and it must encourage people who smoke to switch. The next CTP director should never again utter the deceptive phrase “No tobacco product is safe.”
The ideal choice for CTP director would be a scientist who is not ideologically opposed to vaping and other consumer nicotine products, but also not beholden to any entrenched interests, including the tobacco and vaping industries, prohibitionist tobacco control groups, other related special interest groups, or either political party.