Dr. David Kessler gave the keynote speech at the Bertram Carnow Memorial Symposia Monday on the Food and Drug Administration’s investigations into the tobacco industry’s manipulation of nicotine in cigarettes.

Kessler, the dean of the Yale University Medical School and former FDA commissioner, talked about the seven-year battle the FDA went through to be able to have jurisdiction over tobacco. The FDA wants to regulate tobacco as a drug.

A drug is any article (other than food) intended to affect the structure or any function of the body, Kessler read from the 1938 Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act.

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Kessler stressed that the FDA had to prove that the tobacco industry intended to affect the structure or any function of the body. The intent could be on the part of the company or the consumer.

If you are the tobacco industry, what do you intend?, Kessler asked. Pleasure and satisfaction. Just look at the billboards.

Kessler said the FDA discovered that the tobacco industry had done hundreds of studies on the effects of nicotine and used the finding to manipulate the amount of nicotine in cigarettes.

He also told the group about the industry using different blends of tobacco to increase the nicotine content in tobacco products.

The higher on the stalk, the more nicotine you will find, he said. There are dozens of nicotine combinations to choose.