ACSH's Drs. Elizabeth M. Whelan and Gilbert Ross have written to the Food and Drug Administration to say that regulating or banning the ingredients in cigarettes probably won't decrease their toxicity. The text of their letter:
To: Dr. Lawrence Deyton, Director
FDA Center for Tobacco Products
Cristi L. Stark, M.S.
Senior Regulatory Health Project Manager
May 26th, 2010
Subject: ACSH additional submission re: cigarette ingredients
Dear Dr. Deyton and Ms. Stark:
This brief submission in advance of your July 15th meeting is addressed to your Center's stated concern about cigarette ingredients.
It is the position of The American Council on Science and Health that regulating or banning several, or even many, of the known and suspected toxicants and carcinogens in cigarettes is not likely to result in significant improvement in the pathological and lethal effects of inhaling the products of tobacco combustion. As you know, there are thousands of known chemicals in tobacco smoke as there are in any combusted vegetable matter. Some of these are known carcinogens, either when administered to animals or when inhaled by humans. The specific toxicities of many others are not known, nor are the effects of the admixture when inhaled. There is no reason to believe that modifying, restricting or banning/eliminating a few of these ingredients will lead to a "safer cigarette."
These concerns are markedly reduced when tobacco products are not combusted nor inhaled e.g, in smokeless tobacco and this type of tobacco exposure, with its attendant nicotine intake, may possibly assist addicted smokers to quit. Reducing certain specific "carcinogens" in cigarette smoke, on the other hand, will yield no substantial health benefits. Worse, giving unsupported hope to the notion that such changes will yield a "safer" cigarette will be a public health detriment, even though that is not your intention.
Respectfully submitted,
Gilbert L. Ross MD Medical Director
Elizabeth M. Whelan ScD MPH President
The American Council on Science and Health
1995 Broadway
New York NY 10023
212-362-7044