As psychedelics gain ground as a potential therapy for mental health disorders, there remains a pressing concern that patients in clinical trials may have adverse effects to the drugs.
New research identifies personality traits that have been associated with positive and negative experiences on psychedelics in previous studies, information that could help predict how future clinical trial participants will respond to the drugs.
The findings suggest that people more open to new experiences and willing to surrender to the unknown may be best positioned to have a positive experience on psychedelics, and individuals who tend to be preoccupied or apprehensive could be more likely to have a negative, or challenging, experience.
These predictions could be used by scientists to help hesitant clinical trial patients feel more open to the potential therapy, possibly by offering lower doses as a starting point, researchers say — though such a concept remains speculative.
“The findings point to interesting testable things we can look at in future research,” said Alan Davis, assistant professor of social work at The Ohio State University and senior author of the review. “It might be plausible to use threshold doses that are smaller than those used in a trial as a first exposure so people have less anxiety, experience the benefit and, from that, go into a higher dose later.”
The study is published online in the journal ACS Pharmacology & Translational Science.

The lightning speed with which scientists developed and tested the COVID-19 vaccine is a true scientific triumph — one that would not have been possible without the more than 70,000 volunteers who participated in clinical trials of the vaccine.
Public participation is critical to the success of any medical research. Yet recruiting volunteers for trials is increasingly challenging. New research from Washington University in St. Louis suggests the widening ideological gap in the U.S. may contribute to these challenges.
Researchers found evidence that Americans approach opportunities to contribute to medical research with either a general aversion or an inclination to participate. This research concludes that propensity is driven, at least in part, by political ideology.
While much attention has been given to Black people’s distrust in the medical system and research in particular, the current study — published in Scientific Reports — is the first to demonstrate the effect of political ideology on willingness to trust science and participate in medical research.
“Our research shows that conservatives are less willing to participate in medical research than are liberals. This difference is due, in part, to ideological differences in trust in science,” said Matthew Gabel, professor of political science in Arts & Sciences.
There are potential consequences to this divide.

While some youth experiment with marijuana but don’t go on to long-term use, others develop a problematic pot habit that continues into adulthood. A major new analysis shows that at least a small portion of the risk for developing into an adult marijuana user may be related to inherited behaviors and traits that appear during adolescence.
The journal Addiction published the findings by researchers at Brown University and Emory University.
“Our analysis suggests that some early adolescent behaviors and traits — like depression, neuroticism and acting out — can be indicative for cannabis use later in life,” says Rohan Palmer, senior author of the paper and assistant professor in Emory’s Department of Psychology, where he heads the Behavioral Genetics of Addiction Laboratory.
“Decades of research has shown that behaviors can have a genetic component,” adds Leslie Brick, lead author and assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior in Brown’s Alpert Medical School. “And while there is not one genetically-influenced trait that determines whether you’re going to be a long-term cannabis user, our paper indicates that there are polygenic effects across multiple inherited behaviors and traits that show a propensity for increased risk.”
Brick, a long-time collaborator with Rohan, also holds an adjunct faculty appointment in Emory’s Department of Psychology.
The Transmissible Liability Index is a well-known measure for a constellation of heritable traits that may appear during the developmental years that are associated with the risk of a substance use disorder. For the current paper, the researchers wanted to tease out which of these heritable characteristics might be associated with repeated marijuana use later in life.

The Covid-19 pandemic severely impacted the mental health of young people, with increased levels of clinical depression being identified, a new study published in the journal Psychiatry Research reports. A decrease in alcohol consumption was also identified amongst young people during the pandemic.
During this unique study researchers from the University of Surrey surveyed 259 young people pre- pandemic (autumn 2019) and in the midst of initial lockdown measures (May/June 2020) on their levels of depression, anxiety, wellbeing, alcohol use and sleep quality.
Researchers found evidence of a substantial impact on the mental health of these young adults due to the Covid-19 pandemic, with a significant rise in depression symptoms and a reduction in overall wellbeing during lockdown compared to the previous autumn. Levels of clinical depression in those surveyed were found to have more than doubled, rising from 14.9 per cent in autumn 2019 to 34.7 per cent in May/June 2020.
Sleep quality was not seen to decline in the overall sample but, importantly, a correlation was seen between the rise in depression and lower sleep quality under lockdown. Also of concern, researchers identified a significant shift towards ‘eveningness’ (a preference to go to sleep and wake later), which has previously been associated with higher levels of anxiety and a greater prevalence of minor psychiatric disorders.
Interestingly, despite reports of rising worldwide sales of alcohol during the first lockdown, researchers identified a significant decrease in alcohol consumption amongst the group that could be attributed to social restrictions in place during this period. Researchers were encouraged by this finding as it suggests that young people were not using alcohol as a coping strategy during that time.
Findings from this study highlight the substantial impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on young people’s mental health. The link to sleep quality could help inform strategies to support their wellbeing as the Covid-19 situation continues to evolve.
Dr Simon Evans, Lecturer in Neuroscience at the University of Surrey, said: “For many years there has been a rise in the number of young people experiencing problems with their mental health, and it is concerning to find that this has been significantly exacerbated due to Covid-19. Supporting the mental health of young people and ensuring they can access the support they need is vital to ensure their overall wellbeing. As social restrictions continue in response to the pandemic, it is crucial that we take steps to protect their mental health.”
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Materials provided by University of Surrey. Original written by Natasha Meredith. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

In a recent study testing the effects of exercise on overall metabolism, researchers at Oregon State University found that even a single session of moderate aerobic exercise makes a difference in the cells of otherwise sedentary people.
Mitochondria are the part of the cell responsible for the biological process of respiration, which turns fuels such as sugars and fats into energy, so the researchers focused only on mitochondria function.
“What we found is that, regardless of what fuel the mitochondria were using, there were mild increases in the ability to burn off the fuels,” said Matt Robinson, lead author on the study and an assistant professor in the College of Public Health and Human Sciences.
OSU researchers recruited participants who do not follow a regular exercise routine and had them ride a stationary bike for an hour at a moderate intensity. They biopsied their muscles 15 minutes later to test how efficient the mitochondria were after the exercise was completed and compared those results with a resting day.
Post-exercise, study participants’ mitochondria burned 12-13% more fat-based fuel and 14-17% more sugar-based fuel. While the effects were not drastic, they were consistent, Robinson said.
“It’s pretty remarkable that even after just one hour of exercise, these people were able to burn off a little more fuel,” he said.

Cancer immunotherapy may get a boost from an unexpected direction: bacteria residing within tumor cells. In a new study published in Nature, researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science and their collaborators have discovered that the immune system “sees” these bacteria and shown they can be harnessed to provoke an immune reaction against the tumor. The study may also help clarify the connection between immunotherapy and the gut microbiome, explaining the findings of previous research that the microbiome affects the success of immunotherapy.
Immunotherapy treatments of the past decade or so have dramatically improved recovery rates from certain cancers, particularly malignant melanoma; but in melanoma, they still work in only about 40% of the cases. Prof. Yardena Samuels of Weizmann’s Molecular Cell Biology Department studies molecular “signposts” — protein fragments, or peptides, on the cell surface — that mark cancer cells as foreign and may therefore serve as potential added targets for immunotherapy. In the new study, she and colleagues extended their search for new cancer signposts to those bacteria known to colonize tumors.
Using methods developed by departmental colleague Dr. Ravid Straussman, who was one of the first to reveal the nature of the bacterial “guests” in cancer cells, Samuels and her team, led by Dr. Shelly Kalaora and Adi Nagler (joint co-first authors), analyzed tissue samples from 17 metastatic melanoma tumors derived from nine patients. They obtained bacterial genomic profiles of these tumors and then applied an approach known as HLA-peptidomics to identify tumor peptides that can be recognized by the immune system.
The research was conducted in collaboration with Dr. Jennifer A. Wargo of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas; Prof Scott N. Peterson of Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, La Jolla, California; Prof Eytan Ruppin of the National Cancer Institute, USA; Prof Arie Admon of the Technion — Israel Institute of Technology and other scientists.
The HLA peptidomics analysis revealed nearly 300 peptides from 41 different bacteria on the surface of the melanoma cells. The crucial new finding was that the peptides were displayed on the cancer cell surfaces by HLA protein complexes — complexes that are present on the membranes of all cells in our body and play a role in regulating the immune response. One of the HLA’s jobs is to sound an alarm about anything that’s foreign by “presenting” foreign peptides to the immune system so that immune T cells can “see” them. “Using HLA peptidomics, we were able to reveal the HLA-presented peptides of the tumor in an unbiased manner,” Kalaora says. “This method has already enabled us in the past to identify tumor antigens that have shown promising results in clinical trials.”
It’s unclear why cancer cells should perform a seemingly suicidal act of this sort: presenting bacterial peptides to the immune system, which can respond by destroying these cells. But whatever the reason, the fact that malignant cells do display these peptides in such a manner reveals an entirely new type of interaction between the immune system and the tumor.
This revelation supplies a potential explanation for how the gut microbiome affects immunotherapy. Some of the bacteria the team identified were known gut microbes. The presentation of the bacterial peptides on the surface of tumor cells is likely to play a role in the immune response, and future studies may establish which bacterial peptides enhance that immune response, enabling physicians to predict the success of immunotherapy and to tailor a personalized treatment accordingly.
Moreover, the fact that bacterial peptides on tumor cells are visible to the immune system can be exploited for enhancing immunotherapy. “Many of these peptides were shared by different metastases from the same patient or by tumors from different patients, which suggests that they have a therapeutic potential and a potent ability to produce immune activation,” Nagler says.
In a series of continuing experiments, Samuels and colleagues incubated T cells from melanoma patients in a laboratory dish together with bacterial peptides derived from tumor cells of the same patient. The result: T cells were activated specifically toward the bacterial peptides.
“Our findings suggest that bacterial peptides presented on tumor cells can serve as potential targets for immunotherapy,” Samuels said. “They may be exploited to help immune T cells recognize the tumor with greater precision, so that these cells can mount a better attack against the cancer. This approach can in the future be used in combination with existing immunotherapy drugs.”
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Materials provided by Weizmann Institute of Science. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Melbourne researchers have revealed how melanoma cells are flooded with DNA changes as this skin cancer progresses from early, treatable stages through to fatal end-stage disease.
Using genomics, the team tracked DNA changes occurring in melanoma samples donated by patients as their disease progressed, right through to the time the patient died. This revealed dramatic and chaotic genetic changes that accumulated in the melanoma cells as the cancers progressed, providing clues to potential new approaches to treating this disease.
The research, published in Nature Communications, was led by Professor Mark Shackleton, Professor Director of Oncology at Alfred Health and Monash University; Professor Tony Papenfuss, who leads WEHI’s Computational Biology Theme and co-heads the Computational Cancer Biology Program at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre; and Dr Ismael Vergara, a computational biologist at WEHI, Peter Mac and the Melanoma Institute Australia.
At a glance Genomics has been used to track DNA changes in melanoma samples donated by patients whose disease recurred and progressed after treatment. The research revealed that end-stage melanomas acquired dramatic and chaotic genetic changes that are associated with aggressive disease growth and treatment resistance. Understanding the genetic changes that drive melanoma growth and treatment resistance could lead to new approaches to treating this cancer.Tracking a devastating cancer
Melanoma — the third most commonly diagnosed cancer in Australia — is caused by damaging changes occurring in the DNA of skin cells called melanocytes, usually as a result of exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation from sunlight. These genetic changes enable uncontrolled growth of the cells, forming a melanoma. As the melanoma cells keep dividing, some accumulate even more DNA changes, helping them to grow even faster and spread, said Professor Shackleton.

People are not very nice to machines. The disdain goes beyond the slot machine that emptied your wallet, a dispenser that failed to deliver a Coke or a navigation system that took you on an unwanted detour.
Yet USC researchers report that people affected by COVID-19 are showing more goodwill — to humans and to human-like autonomous machines.
“The new discovery here is that when people are distracted by something distressing, they treat machines socially like they would treat other people. We found greater faith in technology due to the pandemic and a closing of the gap between humans and machines,” said Jonathan Gratch, senior author of the study and director for virtual humans research at the USC Institute for Creative Technologies.
The findings, which appeared recently in the journal iScience, come from researchers at USC, George Mason University and the U.S. Department of Defense.
The scientists noted that, in general, people mostly dispense with social norms of human interaction and treat machines differently. The behavior holds even as machines become more humanlike; think Alexa, the persona in your vehicle navigation system or other virtual assistants. This is because human default behavior is often driven by heuristic thinking — the snap judgments people use to navigate complex daily interactions.
In studying human-machine interactions, the researchers noted that people impacted by COVID-19 also displayed more altruism both toward other people and to machines.

The condition, formerly called multiple personality disorder, affects a surprising 1 percent of the population.Twenty-eight-year-old Marshay refers to herself as “the Little One” and says she feels as if she was born six years ago. Her mother knows something really bad must have happened to her when she was very young, although she doesn’t know what happened. When she asks her daughter why she thinks she’s still a small child, Marshay answers, “I don’t remember anything. I don’t want to grow up. I want to stay little.”Marshay’s brain periodically seeks a safe haven, a persona where she feels immune to some horrific abuse she apparently suffered early in life. She has other identities as well who “come out” when provoked by certain triggering events and she needs these alternate identities to feel safe.Marshay is one of several people with dissociative identity disorder who are featured in a new documentary called “Busy Inside,” available on public television’s World Channel: America ReFramed. It can be watched free online through April 15. She is among a surprising 1 percent of the population with this psychiatric condition, formerly called multiple personality disorder, which was famously portrayed decades ago in films like “The Three Faces of Eve” and “Sybil.” It mostly affects women.The new film shows the challenges involved in learning to live with the disorder. Still, most of those affected never seek professional help until and unless their lives become unmanageable.Karen Marshall, Marshay’s therapist, a licensed social worker, also has the disorder, and told me that 17 different personalities inhabit her psyche and can emerge from time to time. She suffered severe sexual and physical abuse as a young child at the hands of her mother, and said she experienced tremendous relief when she died “and couldn’t hurt me anymore.” She says her own trauma, and the ways she learned to manage it, has helped her be an effective therapist.Dr. David Spiegel, a Stanford University psychiatrist who gave the disorder its modern name, explained, “We develop our identity in childhood, and if you’re abused by someone who is supposed to love and protect you, you try to detach yourself from” that abusive situation. “In extreme forms, you assume other identities. It becomes a disorder.” The hippocampus, a part of the brain that deals with stress, may shrink and cause an extreme sensitivity to stress hormones, he said.Early in life when the brain can’t handle something, “it puts it in a little box in the brain,” Ms. Marshall said. Then something else it can’t handle goes into another compartment in the brain, and so forth, resulting in some people developing different personalities, any of which can take over for a time.A woman in the film named Sarah who has seven or eight identities describes her childhood trauma as being in a freezing cold basement with few clothes on and two men grabbing at her while others stood around laughing. “I can see this happening but I can’t stop it,” she recalls. “The monster keeps coming out, obliterating everything.”In the documentary, Ms. Marshall encourages Marshay to accept herself as an adult woman with many facets, saying reassuringly, “We all have different roles, and we all wear different masks in a way.”For those with the disorder, when an alternate identity takes over, the person may lose track of time and have no memory of what the other personality did while it was “out.” Ms. Marshall said one woman she treated had an alternate personality who was a shoplifter and when she reverted to her main identity, had no idea how she had acquired all the things in her apartment.Dissociative identity disorder is both underdiagnosed and often misdiagnosed as depression or anxiety disorder and consequently mistreated, Dr. Spiegel said. Once affected individuals acknowledge that they have a problem, it takes an average of six years for them to learn what is causing their symptoms if they should seek help, Dr. Spiegel said.Some people with the disorder never do, and somehow manage to live normal lives until and unless something very stressful causes their alternate identities to take over and disrupt their ability to function. For example, Ms. Marshall told me, one person in the film performed well as a company executive for many years until a family trauma so unnerved her that her identities split, very hostile and disabling personalities emerged and she could no longer do her job.Dr. Spiegel said some people with the disorder “are afraid of treatment or ambivalent about it; they don’t believe I’m here to help them because, based on their history, they see helpers as potentially harming them.”Alternate identities can also emerge at the same time, as if the person is two people who oppose one another. The identities develop specialized roles, coming out under certain circumstances, Dr. Spiegel said. For example, one identity may “protect” against another that might be aggressive or harmful. The protective identity may think, “I’m going to stay out while so-and-so is around,” he said. As Ms. Marshall explained, people can have one or two identities that act as gatekeepers, keeping the others inside.In treatment, by identifying and emphasizing the person’s core values and beliefs, the person’s adult identity that enables them to function normally can learn to take over for identities that are distressing or troublemakers, Ms. Marshall said.Her approach to treatment does not necessarily try to rid people of their alternate identities unless, of course, that’s what they want to accomplish. Rather, she said, they may learn to use their alternates constructively so they can live a normal life as an adult in society.Also helpful is learning to recognize circumstances that can prompt a distressing identity to emerge and temporarily replace the adult persona. Ms. Marshall said she has learned, “If I’m tired or sick or stressed, I can end up splitting,” and a childlike personality emerges.As in post-traumatic stress disorder, people with multiple identities can have flashbacks and experience their abuse all over again. Ms. Marshall said, “I don’t watch shows about child abuse.” In treating dissociative identity disorder, she said, “I try to get the ‘Little Ones,’ who were traumatized, to know they’re safe, that they’re not going to be hurt again.”Dr. Richard P. Kluft, a psychiatrist in Bala Cynwyd, Pa., focuses therapy for the disorder on providing “good, caring, nurturing, comforting support” that helps patients feel safe. “The mind starts to heal in the face of loving care,” he said. Both he and Dr. Spiegel often use hypnosis to facilitate therapy and teach patients how to calm themselves down with self-hypnosis between sessions.For patients reluctant to leave behind their “rich inner world,” Dr. Kluft says he welcomes all parts of their personality, helping their various identities learn to empathize with and respect one another.Ms. Marshall said that as people with multiple identities start to get healthier, “they can look at what they’re feeling and experiencing and then make a different choice. They can learn to use their alternates constructively so they can function in society as an adult person,” which Marshay is gradually learning to do.

Advocates are hoping that President Biden will soon come out in favor of banning mint-flavored cigarettes and other tobacco products.The banning of menthol cigarettes, the mint-flavored products that have been aggressively marketed to Black Americans, has long been an elusive goal for public health regulators.But Covid-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement have put new pressure on Congress and the White House to reduce racial health disparities. And there are few starker examples than this: Black smokers smoke less but die of heart attacks, strokes and other causes linked to tobacco use at higher rates than white smokers do, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And 85 percent of Black smokers use Newport, Kool and other menthol brands that are easier to become addicted to and harder to quit than plain tobacco, according to the Food and Drug Administration.“Covid-19 exposed the discriminatory treatment that Black people have been facing for hundreds of years,” said Dr. Phillip Gardiner, a co-chairman of the African American Tobacco Control Leadership Council, which has been pushing for menthol bans in communities across the country. Calling menthol cigarettes and cigarillos “main vectors” of disease and death among Black Americans, he added, “It’s precisely at this time that we need strong public health measures.”There is now growing momentum in Congress to enact a ban. In states and municipalities across the country, Black public health activists have been organizing support and getting new laws passed at the state and local level. Public opposition among white parents to all flavored e-cigarettes, including menthol, has brought new resources to the issue. And the F.D.A. is under a court order to respond to a citizens’ petition to ban menthol by April 29.Advocates are hoping that President Biden, whose campaign had strong support from Black voters and who has put addressing health inequities front and center among his goals, will soon come out in favor of a ban.“I have no doubt that it’s time for a ban on menthol,” said Representative Karen Bass, of California, who led the Congressional Black Caucus during the last Congress. “We should never allow a chemical that is specifically targeted to a population, that increases death, no matter who it is. In this case, it’s menthol and the Black population. I’m so excited that we have an administration that puts racial equity and health disparities at top of its agenda.”Kevin Munoz, a spokesman for the White House, declined to say whether Mr. Biden supported a menthol ban, but he noted the president’s past support for tobacco control measures.“We are thinking about all of our options that could help reduce tobacco use and address persistent disparities,” Mr. Munoz said.Dr. Gardiner and other public health advocates are particularly concerned about the growing popularity of menthol cigars and cigarillos among Black teenagers. The 2020 National Youth Tobacco Survey, conducted by the federal government, found that 6.5 percent of Black students in high school and middle school, smoked cigars and cigarillos compared with 2.5 percent who smoked traditional cigarettes. The F.D.A. says that menthol is the preferred flavor for the cigarillos, which are cheap and mass-produced, unlike premium cigars.Dr. Phillip Gardiner has been pushing for menthol bans in communities across the country. “It’s precisely at this time that we need strong public health measures,” he said.Jim Wilson/The New York TimesMenthol is a substance found in mint plants, and it can also be synthesized in a lab. It creates a cooling sensation in tobacco products and masks the harshness of the smoke, making it more tolerable. Some studies have shown that menthol also acts as a mild anesthetic. Back in 1953, when menthol was not widely used, a Philip Morris Co. survey revealed that 2 percent of white smokers preferred a menthol brand, while 5 percent of Black smokers did, according to a review of tobacco industry documents by Dr. Gardiner that was published in 2004 by the medical journal Nicotine & Tobacco Research.“The industry looked at that and said, ‘We’re missing an opportunity,’ and consciously targeted the African-American community,” said Matthew L. Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, which has long lobbied for a menthol ban and also helps fund the African American Tobacco Leadership Council.What followed has been well-documented in records made public from numerous lawsuits, that tobacco companies have targeted Black communities with menthol cigarettes for decades. They distributed free samples, offered discounts and sponsored countless concerts and special events, among them the famous Kool Jazz Festival. Tobacco companies also gained good will by advertising in newspapers and magazines geared to a Black readership — and by donating money to civil rights organizations.The companies have also been frequent donors to Black political candidates, and they have been generous supporters of the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation. Officials with Juul and Altria, which owns Philip Morris and also has a 35 percent stake in Juul, serve on the foundation’s corporate advisory board.The Biden administration still lacks a permanent F.D.A. commissioner, and Dr. Janet Woodcock, the acting commissioner, has not been vocal on tobacco issues. But public health advocates were heartened by the confirmation on Thursday of Xavier Becerra, the former attorney general of California, as the secretary of health and human services. In California, Mr. Becerra took aggressive action against tobacco and e-cigarette companies. In August, California became the second state — after Massachusetts’ lead — to ban the sale of all flavored tobacco products. (The law is on hold, pending an industry-sponsored referendum to repeal it, which will be on the ballot in November 2022.)The tobacco industry is in a tricky spot. For several years, the largest companies, Altria and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, now owned by British American Tobacco, have sought to position themselves as transforming their companies into responsible businesses being eager to to preventing young people from smoking and to developing less harmful products. For critics, the industry’s lobbying to protect its menthol brands contradicts that assertion.“It doesn’t seem very transformative if you’ve taken zero steps to address a particular product that has so disproportionately and detrimentally harmed Black Americans,” said Maura Healey, the attorney general of Massachusetts, which enacted a ban on flavors, including menthol, in June. “It’s time for the F.D.A. to act on the scientific evidence that is out there.”A 2008 issue of Essence magazine. Tobacco companies gained good will by advertising in newspapers and magazines geared to a Black readership — and by donating money to civil rights organizations.Tony Cenicola/The New York TimesThe number of Americans who smoke cigarettes has declined to 14 percent in 2019 from a peak of 40 percent in the mid-1960s, according to the F.D.A. That translates to an estimated 34.1 million adult smokers in the United States, nearly 20 million of whom smoke menthol cigarettes. Roughly 480,000 Americans die each year from tobacco-related illnesses and more than 16 million Americans live with a smoking-related disease. In 2009, Congress gave the F.D.A. the authority to regulate the tobacco industry. That year, the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act banned all intentionally flavored cigarettes except menthol, which it referred to the F.D.A. for further study. The F.D.A. came close to a ban under the Obama administration but did not have sufficient White House support.In 2018, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the first F.D.A. commissioner of the Trump administration, announced the agency would ban menthol cigarettes. He was immediately opposed by Senator Richard Burr, Republican of North Carolina, one of the few unapologetically pro-tobacco lawmakers left in Congress.Mr. Burr often promotes the jobs that the industry provides in his home state. His sons have two of those jobs: Tyler Burr works in state governmental affairs at R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., and William Burr works in regulatory affairs at Altria, which owns Philip Morris.After the announcement, Mr. Burr started dispatching oversight letters to the F.D.A. every Friday from mid-November 2018 through early January 2019, with the exception of the week of Thanksgiving. Emails obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show the hundreds of minute questions from Mr. Burr that tied up staff for weeks. He also demanded personal travel records for the agency’s seven center directors and accused the F.D.A. of leaks.The F.D.A. did not back down, but Mr. Burr helped to persuade the Trump administration to kill the plan in early 2019, according to former White House officials. Mr. Burr’s office declined to comment. David Sutton, a spokesman for Altria, which makes Marlboro and other brands that come in menthol, defended keeping menthol cigarettes on the market.“Prohibition and criminalization of adult behavior does not work for products intended for adults 21-plus,” Mr. Sutton said.Kaelan Hollon, a spokeswoman for R.J. Reynolds, whose Newport brand is the biggest menthol seller in the United States, said a menthol ban would infringe on the rights of adults who preferred it to plain tobacco.But such arguments ignore the fact that most smokers start the habit and become addicted to nicotine when they are young, and are most likely to seek flavored products, according to the F.D.A.At this point, the F.D.A. could again propose a federal ban, which would then have to be approved by the White House. Alternatively, Congress could adopt legislation expanding the current restrictions on sales of flavored cigarettes to include menthol — effectively undoing the current exemption.More than 120 localities have already enacted bans of flavored tobacco products, including menthol cigarettes, according to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. The African American Tobacco Control Leadership Council is running an anti-menthol campaign with Delta Sigma Theta, a historically Black sorority, and others. The council is also a plaintiff, along with the Action on Smoking and Health, in the citizens’ petition that forced the April 29 deadline for the F.D.A. to say whether or not it will ban menthol.Advocates hope President Biden, whose campaign had strong support from Black voters and who has put addressing health inequities front and center, will come out in favor of a ban.Bryan Thomas for The New York TimesThe Center for Black Health and Equity, a nonprofit organization in North Carolina, has also pushed hard on the issue, enlisting churches to sponsor “No Menthol Sundays.”In recent years, the tobacco industry has joined forces with certain civil rights activists, among them the Rev. Al Sharpton, who according to the California Department of Public Health, visited Black communities in the state, raising fear that a menthol ban would give the police an excuse to stop and frisk more Black individuals. Mr. Sharpton also helped to defeat a ban in New York.Ms. Bass has lost patience with that argument, saying a ban would prohibit selling menthol cigarettes, not possessing them.Ms. Bass said that a majority of lawmakers, including those in the Congressional Black Caucus, favor banning all tobacco flavors, including menthol. Eighty percent of the Congressional Black Caucus members voted last year for legislation that would have banned menthol cigarettes.Marc Scheineson, a lawyer with Alston and Bird, who represents small tobacco companies, believes that Representative James Clyburn, Democrat of South Carolina, may be the decisive vote. Mr. Clyburn was instrumental in developing support for Mr. Biden among Black Americans during his presidential campaign.“He can get whatever he wants,” Mr. Scheineson said. “I’m sure he’s got a wish list, but I’m sure all the African-American groups are coming to him and he’s got to prioritize.”Last year, Mr. Clyburn was absent for the House vote on legislation that would have banned menthol cigarettes. He has kept a low profile on the issue, not lobbying for tobacco companies but not standing in the way, either. Mr. Clyburn did not return requests seeking comment.Dr. Gottlieb believes the Biden administration will finally ban menthol cigarettes.“We opened the door on this in a Republican administration,” he said. “You don’t think a Democratic administration will finish the business? Of course they will.”