By Susan Heavey

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on launched its tobacco center to oversee cigarettes and other related products, tapping a former veterans' health official to lead the effort.

Lawrence Deyton, who led public health programs at the veterans' department as its chief public health and environmental hazards officer, helped boost efforts to curb smoking among military veterans, the FDA said.

Deyton, a George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences professor, also previously worked at the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Health and Human Services.

The FDA tobacco center, established by law in June, is charged with regulating cigarettes and other tobacco products. It will oversee the manufacturing and marketing of such items, including regulating ingredients and establishing advertising rules.

Makers include Altria Group Inc's Philip Morris unit, Reynolds American Inc's R.J. Reynolds Tobacco. Lorillard Inc's Lorillard Tobacco Co and Star Scientific Inc.

In setting up the center, FDA said it was using $5 million from the agency's fiscal year 2009 budget to begin administrative work. The agency will begin collecting user fees from the industry as soon as October to help fund the center.

Deyton and other new tobacco center employees will have years of work ahead of them as they move to issue new regulations, industry rules and other actions called for under the law, which has deadlines stretching out as far as 2015.

The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, which campaigned for FDA power over tobacco products, echoed other advocacy groups in welcoming Deyton as a sign of the agency "moving quickly and vigorously to implement its new authority to regulate tobacco products."

At the Veterans Administration, Deyton helped increase use of veteran smoking cessation programs and eliminated the sale of tobacco products at VA facilities, the advocacy group said.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey; editing by Gunna Dickson; editing by Carol Bishopric)