The Missing Menthol Ban, Food Systems, and Abortion Pill Imports

Editors' Note

On Monday, Think Global Health broke the news that the White House and the Food and Drug Administration missed an already delayed deadline to finalize a ban on menthol cigarettes. Journalist Clayton Gutzmore explains how the ban, put forward in April 2022, could save an estimated 654,000 lives over the next 40 years, namely among communities of color. Anti-smoking groups are now suing the White House over missing the deadline on the ban—TGH readers can find the details in the What We're Reading section.

This week's edition pivots to global food systems with a miniseries guest edited by Jack Bobo, director of the University of Nottingham's Food Systems Institute. The first installment, by Ertharin Cousin and Meghan O'Hearn from the nonprofit organization Food Systems for the Future, stresses the need to revolutionize the global food system.

A second piece by Dariush Mozaffarian, director of Tuft University's Food is Medicine Institute, explains how his organization's interventions, which focus on increasing the access, affordability, availability, and consumption of healthy foods, can lower the economic costs and societal disparities associated with diet-related diseases. Jack Bobo wraps up the series warning how political polarization is seeping into food production practices.

Closing out this week's lineup, CFR's Chloe Searchinger explains how a case at the U.S. Supreme Court—Food and Drug Administration v. Hippocratic Alliance of Medicine—could boost illegal imports of abortion pills made overseas, regardless of the verdict.

Until next week!—Nsikan Akpan, Managing Editor, and Caroline Kantis, Associate Editor 