Delivering confusion

Smokers inhale much higher doses of harmful substances than is ‘stated on cigarette packs’, according to a story by Janene Pieters published in the NL Times and citing a study by the Dutch public health institute RIVM.
The story goes on to say that the researchers found that the amount of tar, nicotine and carbon monoxide delivered is at least twice as high as manufacturers ‘claim’.
This comes about because of a long-running debate about how cigarettes are and should be tested. Some people believe that they should be tested with ventilation holes open, while others say that the ventilation holes should be blocked. The former testing method, approved in the EU, gives lower readings than does the latter method.
The crux of the matter seems to be that, originally, such testing was not meant to give absolute values of tar, nicotine and CO deliveries, but relative values.
A spokesperson for Philip Morris was quoted in the story as saying the testing “is not intended to measure individual exposure, but to make a comparison between cigarette brands”.
The spokesman was quoted as saying also that if another measurement were to be used in the EU, the maximum allowable values would have to be adjusted. The limits currently are 10 mg of tar, 1 mg of nicotine and 10 mg of CO per cigarette.
Referring to the researchers’ findings, the Netherlands’ State Secretary for Public Health said he was “shocked by these hard facts,” even though the expectation was that tobacco smoke would turn out to be more harmful than ‘the packages suggest’.
Blokhuis called it “very worrying that with all cigarettes smokers actually get a lot more poison in than they are told”.
He is advocating for cigarettes in the EU to be “measured without any tampering”.
However, when the EU Commission brought in its revised Tobacco Directive in May 2016, it said that the tar, nicotine and CO (TNCO) labeling on cigarettes and RYO tobacco would be replaced with an information message that informs consumers that ‘Tobacco smoke contains over 70 substances known to cause cancer’.
Additionally, it said that research had shown that TNCO labeling was misleading to consumers because it made them believe that some products were less risky than were others to their health.
It said the new information message would more accurately reflect the true health consequences of smoking.