Heated tobacco criticized

Heated tobacco products (HTPs) can be as addictive and harmful to the body as regular cigarettes, Taiwan’s Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said on May 2nd, according to The Taipei Times.

The agency issued the warning a day after the U.S. FDA authorized Philip Morris International (PMI) to market its IQOS tobacco-heating system in the United States.

“Smoking cigarettes does nothing but harm the body, and new types of products—e-cigarettes and HTPs—are the same,” an HPA representative told The Taipei Times.  Citing a World Health Organization information sheet on HTPs, the agency said that “there is no evidence to demonstrate that HTPs are less harmful than conventional tobacco products.”

It pointed to the presence in HTPs of nicotine, which is addictive, and that of tar, formaldehyde, acetaldehyde.

Tobacco Control Division head Lo Su-ying also expressed concern that THPs might attract more young people to smoking.