Breathing easy
Should the government regulate the safety of tobacco products? Who would benefit most?
The newer "reduced risk" products purport to have fewer amounts of various toxins. Smoke from tobacco contains a complex array of about 4,000 chemicals, including heavy metals, arsenic, lead, cyanide, and other contaminants. Brown & Williamson Tobacco is currently test-marketing Advance Lights, which are cigarettes with a special filter that the company says lowers the amount of toxins that reach the smoker. The brand also contains "flue-cured" tobacco, from a process that uses "a combination of high-temperature and high-speed airflow that inhibits the formation of tobacco-specific nitrosamines, some of which are categorized as carcinogens," according to a written statement from the company.
Healthy innovations? Philip Morris and R. J. Reynolds Tobacco have products that heat rather than burn tobacco in order to create a minimal amount of smoke. Philip Morris is test-marketing Accord, a product that is "about the size of a tape recorder, maybe a little smaller," says Jack Nelson, the company's president of operations and technology. A special cigarette is inserted into the battery-operated gadget and a computer chip detects when the smoker is taking a puff. It then heats a portion of the tobacco. "The cigarette doesn't continue to burn," he says. Accord "controls the temperature so it . . . reduces virtually everything in the smoke chemistry that is considered to be harmful, at least that we can measure."
But questions have been raised about R. J. Reynolds's version, which is called Eclipse. The product is smoked like a cigarette, although the tobacco is heated rather than burned. In an April 2000 news release, the company said Eclipse "may present smokers with less risk of cancer, chronic bronchitis, and possibly emphysema, when compared to other cigarettes." But a study commissioned by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health found that Eclipse produced as much, if not more, of cancer-causing toxins as two comparative ultralight brands of cigarettes. The study also found that Eclipse released higher levels of carbon monoxide, a leading cause of cardiovascular disease in smokers. RJRT spokesperson Carole Crosslin says the company does not believe that valid scientific conclusions can be drawn from the study.
Disputes like this highlight the need for government regulation of this new generation of tobacco products, experts say. "It is not that these products are inherently bad," says Johns Hopkins's Henningfield. "But right now we're in the worst days of the snake-oil salesmen," where even public-health officials don't know what to believe, let alone the average consumer. Corr of Tobacco Free-Kids says that smokers who are addicted to nicotine are especially vulnerable to marketing messages that claim to reduce the health risks of smoking. "There is enormous potential on the part of smokers to change their behavior if they think it will be better for their health," he says.
It is up to Congress to pass legislation that will grant the FDA the authority to regulate reduced-risk and conventional tobacco products. In 2000, the Supreme Court turned down the FDA's bid to regulate cigarettes as medical devices, asserting that Congress would have to extend the FDA's jurisdiction before the agency could intervene. There are currently two competing proposals to broaden the FDA's authority. One, which is supported by the public health community, was introduced by Sens. Ted Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, and Mike DeWine, an Ohio Republican, last year. The other, crafted by Rep. Tom Davis, a Republican from Virginia, gives the tobacco companies more leverage to resist the FDA's attempts to rein in their manufacturing and promotional activities. It is this version that Philip Morris favors.
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