Tobacco Documents Online

IST STORY of Level 1 printed in FULL format. Copyright 1994 The New York Times Company The New York Times May 2, 1994, Monday, Late Edition - Final SECTION: Section A; Page i; Column i; National Desk LENGTH: 1232 words HEADLINE: MAJOR FLAW CITED IN CIGARETTE DATA BYLINE: By PHILIP J. HILTS, Special to The New York Times DATELINE: WASHINGTON, May 1 BODY: Smokers of cigarettes labeled low in tar and nicotine may be getting more of those substances than they think, Federal Trade Commission officials and experts in smoking now agree. And they attribute the problem to testing that has not kept up with the changes in cigarette design over the last 20 years. Since 1971, when the results of the tests were first printed in cigarette advertising and on packaging, cigarettes labeled low in tar and nicotine have taken over the market, now accounting for 60 percent of the cigarettes sold in this country. National polls conducted by the Gallup organization have found that smokers believe that the cigarettes labeled "light" are less hazardous and will give them less tar and nicotine. But evidence has accumulated that the measurements, which are carried out by tobacco company laboratories under the supervision of the FoT.C., bear little or no relation to how much nicotine and tar smokers actually get from smoking, because knowingly or unknowingly smokers often draw deeper or puff harder. "The commission has been aware for a while that the test has problems regarding the actual intake that consumers will get," Judith D. Wilkenfeld, assistant director in the F.T.Co's Division of Advertising Practices, said in a telephone interview. "We know that consumers do not smoke in exactly the same manner as the machine" used in testing, she said. "So the tests will not predict the actual human consumption." Ms. Wilkenfeld said the commission was looking at alternatives to the tar and nicotine tests, and added that the pressure to make a decision had recently increased. The commission's cigarette tests are done by machines that hold the cigarette and draw air through it in two-second puffs, repeating the puffs once every minute until the cigarette burns to the filter. But cigarettes now include several features that make the machine tests

The New York Times, May 2, 1994 meaningless, said Dr. Jack E. Henningfield, chief of clinical pharmacology research at the National Institutes on Drug Abuse. For example, to dilute the smoke, a majority of cigarettes now have nearly invisible holes in their filter paper, or in the cigarette paper near the filter. People vs. Machines when the smoking machine draws on a cigarette, a large amount of air is drawn in, and this dilutes the smoke getting to the measuring device, making today's cigarettes appear to contain less tar and nicotine. But smokers do not handle the cigarettes the same way machines do. They find the diluted smoke milder, and to make up for the "lighter" taste, or less satisfying amount of nicotine, they puff more or draw deeper, pulling in more total smoke, so that the result for the smoker is the same amount, or more, of nicotine and tar. In addition, the tiny filtration holes are often blocked by smokers with their lips or hands, thus cutting off the air that would have diluted the smoke. Experts outside the F.T.C. said that the options for the commission included abandoning the test because it was misleading; trying to establish a better test, or shifting the testing responsibility to another agency better equipped to carry out the tests, like the Food and Drug Administration or the National .Institutes on Standards and Technology, formerly the Bureau of Standards. Same Amount of Tar Scientific studies over recent years have shown that smokers get about the same amount of nicotine no matter what kind of cigarette. For example, when scientists look at the blood levels of nicotine in smokers, they cannot tell the smokers of light cigarettes from those of full-flavored cigarettes, as high tar and nicotine cigarettes are called by tobacco companies. The same is true of tar. But tar levels are far lower than they were 40 years ago. At that time cigarettes had amounts of tar as high as 30 to 40 milligrams per cigarette. Now, virtually all brands are in the 5 to 15 milligram range. Nicotine levels have remained relatively stable since 1952. "Smokers can get whatever they want in the way of nicotine," Dr. Henningfield said. "A smoker can draw 3 milligrams of nicotine out of a cigarette that is rated as a 1 milligram yield by the F.T.C. test." Cigarettes contain a total of 7 to 9 milligrams of nicotine in the entire cigarette. Smokers draw out about 1 milligram of nicotine regardless of the type of cigarette smoked, with a range of intake from 0.5 milligrams to 3 milligrams. "There is simply no information to indicate that today's so-called lower tar and nicotine cigarette gives any health benefit," Matthew L. Meyers, a lawyer for the Coalition on Smoking or Health, an anti-smoking group representing the American Heart Association, American Lung Association and American Cancer Society, said in a telephone interview. He questioned perpetuating a system that "falsely implies smokers should use cigarettes with lower ratings, raising major

The New York Times, May 2, 1994 health concerns." Mr. Meyers added, "The F.T.C. method is so flawed that it raises a serious question whether the method causes more harm than good." For example, he said, a smoker may buy a "low-nicotine" cigarette, then consciously or unconsciously smoke more cigarettes or draw deeper to get enough nicotine to satisfy the smoker. But the smoker is getting not only more nicotine but more tar as well, which may well be higher than what the smoker would get from regular cigarettes. Two years ago, the coalition filed a petition with the F.T.C. to consider changing the commission's test method, or dropping the results from advertising, because they may be misleading. But until recently, action on the petition had not got the staff near to a recommendation. The pressure has now been turned up as members of Congress have begun to call the agency to ask why a faulty test remains in place and potentially misleading information continues to be allowed in advertising. Mr. Meyers said that the F.T.C. and others had acted in good faith in trying to establish the testing program initially, but that the commission could be criticized both for sticking to the test for years after it became clear that the test did not match the way people smoke and for failing to explain the limits of the test in light of what we know today. Critics of the tobacco industry suggest that the manufacturers have put holes in the cigarettes over the years to give better-looking results on the smoking machines and thus enticing smokers to their light brands. The companies deny this, saying that smokers are asking for lighter cigarettes and that they are trying to meet those demands. Dr. Neal L. Benowitz, a professor of medicine at the University of California at San Francisco and an expert on smoking, said that giving consumers accurate data on how much tar and nicotine a cigarette delivered would be a major step forward in reducing smoking in the United States. "Eighty percent of smokers say they want to quit," Dr. Benowitz said, and most smokers try lighter cigarettes but are "now unable to get a lighter cigarette even when they want one, because they don't have the information." Dr. Benowitz suggested the giving of accurate data as the first major step in Federal regulation of cigarettes like drugs, a topic now of much interest in Congress and the regulatory agencies since the Food and Drug Administration announced earlier this year its intention to regulate cigarettes. LANGUAGE: ENGLISH LOAD-DATE: May 2, 1994