William Atkins
Sunday, 21 June 2009 20:28
Science -
Health
Page 2 of 3
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has recently been approved by the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives to regulate tobacco products.
The bill is waiting presidential approval.
The June 12, 2009
U.S.A. Today article
Congress sends Obama bill to regulate tobacco states,
“Congress on Friday sent to the White House legislation that gives the federal government vast new powers to regulate and restrict cigarettes, the single largest cause of preventable death."
Within the Harvard study, the two researchers found internal tobacco industry documents that identified discussions taking place between tobacco officials that told of design changes that were not publicly announced.
They stated in their paper,
“Commercial tobacco products undergo a constant process of revision in-market, beginning at the most basic level of physical product characteristics and components, and including every aspect of design. These revisions commonly exceed guidelines for acceptable product variance adopted within the industry."
"While consumer and market testing is conducted to ensure that products remain acceptable to users, explicit marketing often may not accompany brand changes. In the absence of such marketing, it should not be assumed that a brand remains unchanged.”
For instance, Wayne and Connolly found that the tobacco industry regularly changed such characteristics as flavoring blend, processing nicotine delivery, smoke chemistry, levels of processed tobacco, and physical design in the same brand of cigarettes.
Page three concludes.
