On February 27, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee held a hearing to discuss the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (S. 625) and whether the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) should regulate tobacco products.
Chair Edward Kennedy (D-MA) said, “Smoking is the number one preventable cause of death in America. Nationally, cigarettes kill well over 400,000 people each year. That is more lives lost than from automobile accidents, alcohol abuse, illegal drugs, AIDS, murder, and suicide combined. Congress cannot continue to ignore a public health problem of this magnitude.” He outlined the goals of FDA regulation of tobacco, including preventing advertising aimed at youth, stopping tobacco companies from making false or implied health claims, particularly about light or low-tar cigarettes, and helping smokers overcome their addiction to nicotine. “The tobacco industry has a long, dishonorable history of providing misleading information about the health consequences of smoking…The FDA must have the power to take the necessary steps to help addicted smokers overcome their addiction, and to make the product less toxic for smokers who are unable or unwilling to stop. This legislation will also require manufacturers to submit ‘reduced risk’ products to the FDA for analysis before they can be marketed. No health-related claims will be permitted until they have been verified to the FDA’s satisfaction. These safeguards are essential to prevent deceptive industry marketing campaigns, which could lull the public into a false sense of health safety,” he said.
“The FDA approves cures, not poisons,” said Ranking Member Mike Enzi (R-WY). He continued, “Forcing the FDA to regulate tobacco but not letting them ban it would undermine the long history of the agency protecting and promoting the public health… Just having the FDA review and approve cigarettes sends mixed and confusing messages to the public creating the sense that cigarettes are safe or made safer…The FDA cannot be put in the position of approving a product that years of science and the personal experience of far too many Americans has shown to be dangerous. Simply put, it kills people.” Sen. Enzi recommended that Congress consider legislation that would require a greater percentage of funds from the Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) (the agreement under which seven tobacco companies agreed to limit marketing and compensate the states for the costs associated with tobacco-related illnesses) be directed at tobacco control and prevention activities. Currently, most states spend about five percent of the MSA on such activities. Sen. Enzi closed, saying, “I absolutely reject the notion that the way to show you’re for kids and against ‘big tobacco’ is by sending the nation’s premier public health watchdog out to fight for safety with one hand tied behind its back, by allowing this premier agency to provide its FDA seal of approval on a deadly product that has no health benefit.”
Dr. Elmer Huerta, president-elect of the American Cancer Society, told the committee that the “benefits of FDA regulation are clear. FDA regulation will help us combat the vicious marketing practices of a deceptive industry that has preyed upon our children, minorities, and existing smokers who are desperately trying to kick the habit.” Dr. Huerta described the youth promotion efforts of tobacco companies, including flavored cigarettes such as “Twista Lime” and “Winter MochaMint.” He noted one magazine ad campaign by Philip Morris using the slogan, “Find Your Voice.” The campaign “targeted women and girls, featuring Latinas and other ethnic women, suggesting that independence and allure could be found by smoking.” He noted that a campaign by R.J Reynolds features a cigarette called “No. 9” that is packaged to resemble perfume. “The pack of cigarettes is laced in hot pink and teal and the ads include slogans such as ‘light and luscious.’ Amazingly, the industry is increasing its attractiveness to women and girls at a time when lung cancer is the number one cancer killer of women,” he said.
“Placing our most lethal consumer product under the control of the Food and Drug Administration makes no sense,” said Dr. Alan Blum, director of the Center for the Study of Tobacco at the University of Alabama. Noting that the bill was “championed” by Philip Morris, Dr. Blum asked the committee to consider three points: one, that the bill would regulate new tobacco products more stringently than existing products; two, that it would prevent the introduction of new cigarette brands while allowing “Marlboro and the other most popular existing cigarette brands to remain on the market, even though they are far and away the leading public health threat”; and three, that the bill would ban flavored cigarettes but would not require the FDA to eliminate or control the toxic gases in cigarettes.
Dr. Blum also warned that FDA regulation would create a race among tobacco companies to claim that their products were the least harmful. He said tobacco companies were adept at “outmaneuvering” the MSA, citing the transition from print advertising to sponsoring televised sporting events and “cultivating financial relationships with dozens of career centers at universities across the country in an aggressive attempt to recruit college students as Marlboro sales interns and territory sales managers.” The bill “will diminish the public’s appreciation of the inherent, irredeemable harmfulness of cigarettes. By promulgating health standards, the FDA will be fostering the perception that cigarettes are now safer to smoke…The proposed FDA bill will simply change who is committing consumer fraud. Currently, it’s still the cigarette companies…If the FDA bill is enacted, then the government will be doing the dirty work.” He finished his remarks, saying, “This bill could well become known as the Marlboro Protection Act. At the very least, it should come with its own Surgeon General’s warning: ‘This legislation is harmful to public health.’”
Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids said, “S. 625 has the potential to save many lives. Today, America’s most dangerous consumer product tobacco is also the one consumer product that no federal agency oversees for health and safety purposes.” He continued, “Death from tobacco is almost always the last chapter of a book that begins in childhood. Every day, approximately 4,000 kids will try a cigarette for the first time. Another 1,000 will become new, regular smokers, and one-third of these kids will eventually die prematurely as a result.” Mr. Myers outlined the failures of the MSA, including the ability of tobacco companies to reformulate products and the continued marketing of cigarettes to children and youth. “We firmly believe that [the bill] will help protect kids from tobacco companies and their deadly products and deceptive advertising. It will help more adult tobacco users to quit, and it will greatly benefit the public health of the nation,” he said.
Also testifying were: Dr. Jack Henningfield, vice president for research and policy at Pinney Associates and professor at Johns Hopkins University, on the need for regulation of cigarette design and nicotine delivery; Lisa Shames, acting director of natural resources and environment at the Government Accountability Office, on states’ allocations of payments from the MSA; Dr. Richard Land, representative of Faith United Against Tobacco and president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, on faith communities’ efforts to curb tobacco use and agriculture; and Dr. Gregory Connolly, a professor at Harvard School of Public Health, on the marketing of tobacco products before and after the MSA.
