Breathing easy
Should the government regulate the safety of tobacco products? Who would benefit most?
In 1994, Philip Morris President William Campbell testified before Congress that he "strenuously" objected to the idea that nicotine is an addictive drug. That was not even 10 years ago. Today, the same company willingly concedes that tobacco is both addictive and harmful.
At a congressional hearing earlier this month, Mike Szymanczyk--the current CEO of Philip Morris--actually requested federal oversight of tobacco by the Food and Drug Administration, once considered the industry's nemesis. "Regulation needs to focus on how we can reduce harm to society," he said.
The turnaround comes with a new crop of products from the tobacco industry, which claim to reduce the health risks of smoking. These products include cigarettes that may have lesser amounts of cancer-causing compounds as well as gadgets that electrically heat tobacco instead of burning it, cutting down on the harmful chemicals released in cigarette smoke. Antismoking advocates have long argued for FDA oversight of tobacco, and Congress is considering legislation that would grant the FDA that authority. But health officials are concerned that products meant to lessen the risks of tobacco could have untoward consequences for public health. "Here are products that theoretically have less toxins," says Jack Henningfield, an addiction expert at Johns Hopkins University. "But if it is used by someone who otherwise wouldn't have used tobacco or if it keeps a smoker from quitting, then the harm to the public could increase."
Wariness. History has taught public-health experts to be wary of so-called safer tobacco products. The most glaring example has been "light" or low-tar cigarettes, which were introduced to smokers in the 1960s. Close to 90 percent of smokers eventually switched from their traditional brand of smokes to the lighter products, which many thought would pose fewer dangers to their health. But a report released two years ago by the National Cancer Institute showed that smokers tend to compensate for the modifications, either by inhaling more deeply to get more nicotine or by covering holes placed in filters that are meant to allow more clean air into the lungs. As a result, disease rates have not declined as expected. "It took more than 20 years to conclude that smokers who switched to light cigarettes did not reduce their lung cancer risk," says Scott Leischow, chief of the Tobacco Control Research Branch at NCI. "The light cigarette experience taught us valuable lessons that we should not repeat in the future."
One of those lessons is that tobacco companies cannot be trusted to make truthful statements to the public about their products, says William Corr, executive director of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids in Washington. "The people who switched to light or low-tar cigarettes were the ones who were most concerned about their health," he says. "In fact, the tobacco companies knew all along that their products weren't safer." Last March, a judge in Illinois fined Philip Morris $10 billion for misleading consumers in its ads for light and low-tar cigarettes. The judge found that Philip Morris knew that smokers would alter their smoking behavior to achieve higher levels of nicotine and that some brands, including Marlboro Lights, contained more hazardous components than regular Marlboro cigarettes. The company is removing the words "lowered tar and nicotine" from the packaging of its light cigarettes, says Brendan McCormick, senior manager of media affairs for Philip Morris.
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