Will The FDA End Up Endorsing A Safer Cigarette?

Sometimes you read something that just strikes you as so ironic.

Under bills now winding through Washington, the FDA would be empowered to approve cigarette makers’ marketing claims if a tobacco product is scientifically proven to “significantly reduce harm” to smokers, and the product’s availability would benefit the “health of the population as a whole,” the WSJ reports. That designation could be provide “a potentially lucrative opportunity” for the company.

Philip Morris (MO) has a bunch of test products in the works, including one with a carbon filter, and another with a battery-powered device that heats the tobacco. But it’s unclear whether any of them would qualify for the potential FDA-approved marketing claims. And the public health community is skeptical. “We must be extremely wary of claims made by manufacturers,” the dean of the University of Michigan School of Public Health told the WSJ.

Altria has supported this legislation from the beginning while its competitors like Reynolds (RAI) have fought it. By embracing it's inevitable passage and participating in it, Altria has leap frogged over it's competition in developing products that will take advantage of the new rules.

Here is the irony. While "lights" suits wind their way through the courts across the nation, the FDA will undoubtedly end up endorsing a cigarette that is "lighter" or "safer". You just cannot make this stuff up.

The government should just back off tobacco companies. Every time they try to nail them, they only end up making their business stronger.

Disclosure: Author is long MO

Comments

[mbroo5880:]

I don't smoke, never have. This industry has to be the most overregulated industry in the history of mankind. Life is about choices. I don't need the government to tell me where or when I can smoke or whether one brand is "safer" for me than another.

It is almost as if Al Gore had actually won the election.

2007 Jun 23 02:41 PM