IQOS safety questioned

A new study published in JAMA Internal Medicine reports that output from the Philip Morris International heat-not-burn product, iQOS, contains the same harmful components as are found in conventional tobacco cigarette smoke, according to a healio.com story relayed by the TMA.

Writing in the current publication, Dr. Reto Auer, of the Institute of Primary Health Care at the University of Bern in Switzerland, said PMI claimed that iQOS released no smoke because the tobacco did not combust and the tobacco leaves were only heated not burned.  ‘However, there can be smoke without fire,’ he said.

‘The harmful components of tobacco cigarette smoke are products of incomplete combustion (pyrolysis) and the degradation of tobacco cigarettes through heat (thermogenic degradation).’

Auer and his colleagues analyzed and compared the contents and toxic compounds released in iQOS (iQOS Holder, iQOS Pocket Charger, Marlboro HeatSticks [regular], and Heets, Philip Morris SA) ‘smoke’ with that of conventional cigarettes (Lucky Strike Blue Lights).

Their study was said to have found that iQOS smoke contained similar levels of volatile organic compounds and nicotine as the smoke from conventional cigarettes, and that heat-not-burn products released higher levels of the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon acenaphthene than did conventional cigarettes.

The researchers called for further evaluation of the health effects of iQOS and recommended that heated tobacco products should be subjected to the same indoor-smoking bans as were conventional tobacco cigarettes.