The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced the names of the nine voting members of its new Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee, MedPage Today reported March 2.

Jonathan Samet, M.D., will chair the committee; he is the director of the Institute for Global Health at the University of Southern California.

The panel will provide advice, information and recommendations on tobacco-related issues, such as the inclusion of menthol in cigarettes — the topic of its first meeting later this month. Other topics the committee could tackle include tobacco marketing to youth, cigarette additives, and tobacco industry research.

“The breadth of knowledge amassed by this highly-qualified group will supplement and enhance the agency’s understanding of tobacco control, prevention, and health promotion issues,” said Lawrence R. Deyton, M.D., director of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products.

The other voting members of the committee are:

• Neal Benowitz, M.D., chief of the Division of Pharmacology at the University of California at San Francisco
• Mark S. Clanton, M.D., chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society
• Gregory N. Connolly, M.D., acting director of Public Health Practice at the Harvard School of Public Health
• Karen L. DeLeeuw, MSW, director of the Center for Healthy Living and Chronic Disease Prevention at Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment
• Dorothy Hatsukami, PhD, Professor of Psychiatry, Tobacco Use Research Center, director of University of Minnesota in Minneapolis
• Patricia Nez Henderson, M.D., MPH, vice president of Black Hills Center for American Indian Health in Rapid City, S.D.
• Jack E. Henningfield, Ph.D., vice president of research and health policy at Pinney Associates of Bethesda, Md.
• Melanie Wakefield, PhD, director of the Centerfor Behavioral Research in Cancer in Victoria, Australia.

Three additional non-voting members will come from the tobacco industry.