The question: What to do about menthol flavorings in cigarettes, which account for almost a third of the nation's $70 [image-nocss] billion cigarette market?
Opponents of smoking, seven former secretaries of health, and many members of Congress argued for an outright ban of menthol in the tobacco law last year. They said that the flavoring, which cools and masks the harsh taste of cigarettes, was used as a lure for young smokers while also being marketed to black smokers, who have the highest rates of smoking-related disease, the newspaper reported.
But when the issue threatened to split the bill's coalition of backersincluding industry giant Altria, which owns Philip MorrisCongress passed the issue on to the FDA and gave it a two-year deadline to propose new regulations.
So it is no coincidence that menthol will be the first matter taken up by the FDA's new Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee.
Nor was it surprising that the cigarette industry chose to fill its one, nonvoting seat on the committee with an executive from Lorillard Tobacco of Greensboro, N.C., as reported yesterday in CSP Daily News. That company's Newport is the nation's leading menthol brand, and mentholated [products] accounted for 91.5% of Lorillard's $5.2 billion in revenue last year.
Dr. Jonathan Samet, the chairman of the advisory panel and head of preventive medicine at the University of Southern California, declined to discuss the possibility of an outright ban on menthol.
The scientists' job is first to review evidence before recommending what changes could be made to products, he told the newspaper. Under the law, the FDA is to issue a report on menthol next year and take action by 2012.
"We've spent a lot of time working on the dangers of smoking, but now we're going to be taking a somewhat different approach," said Samet. "We'll be trying to understand what it is in the products that harm people and what changes can be made."
Menthol brands are preferred by 75 percent of African-American smokers. And while studies indicate that blacks smoke fewer cigarettes a day than other categories of smokers, they have greater rates of lung cancer, heart disease and strokes. The Congressional Black Caucus, complaining of predatory marketing, was among the groups that had urged stronger action against menthol in the legislation.
Critics also say menthol levels have been manipulated to attract underage first-time smokers.
But the industry, which says menthol is just one of many flavor differences among legal products for adult consumers, denies it markets to young smokers. And it says there is no evidence that menthol causes more people to start smoking. Tobacco companies also say menthol does not pose any greater risk to public health than other types of cigarettes.
"Epidemiological studies suggest no effect of menthol on smoking-related diseases," Brendan J. McCormick, a spokesman for Altria, told the newspaper.
Last year, Congress specifically banned some seldom-used flavorants such as candy flavors, but left it up to the FDA to resolve many far-more difficult issues, including so-called reduced-harm products, alternatives to cigarettesand menthol.
The advisory committee is expected to hold at least one more meeting on menthol, this summer. Later, the group is expected to consider dissolvable products like Camel Orbs, a tobacco and mint pellet now being test marketed by R. J. Reynolds, and nicotine levels in cigarettes, among other issues, an FDA statement said.
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