Health expert questions idea of ‘defective’ cigarettes

A public health expert in the US has pilloried the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Tobacco Products (CTP) for asking consumers to notify it if cigarettes they buy are defective or contaminated.

In a wry piece published on his website, Dr. Michael Siegel, a Professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences, Boston University School of Public Health, expresses incredulity that the CTP has focused on whether individual cigarettes are defective or contaminated when, unadulterated, en masse, they are linked to the premature deaths of 400,000 US smokers each year.

Siegel, who champions the use of electronic cigarettes to help smokers quit tobacco cigarettes and who is concerned that proposed FDA deeming regulations are going to force many electronic cigarettes off the market, goes on to say that he is starting a campaign, entitled ‘Don’t Settle for Less,’ which is aimed at vapers nationwide.

With tongue-in-cheek, Siegel says vapers shouldn’t settle for a ‘defective cigarette that has been shown not to have the cytotoxicity of the real thing’.

Siegel’s piece should be read in full at: http://tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/fda-wants-to-know-if-your-cigarette-is.html.