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FTC Renews Call for Cigarette Testing

Current tar, nicotine ratings 'may be misleading'

November 15, 2007

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The Federal Trade Commission is once again calling for Congress to consider giving authority over cigarette testing to one of the federal government’s science-based public health agencies.

In testimony before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, Commissioner William Kovacic discussed the FTC’s responsibilities in the area of tobacco advertising generally, and specifically explained cigarette testing and the promotion of cigarettes based on machine-measured tar and nicotine yields.

“One of the most challenging issues concerning cigarette advertising and promotion is ... the advertising and promotion of cigarettes based on their tar and nicotine yields as measured by the machine-based test methodology commonly referred to in the United States as ‘the FTC Method’" even though the FTC stopped using the test in 1987, Kovacic said in prepared testimony.

Kovacic said the test method, when first approved in 1967, “was intended to produce uniform, standardized data about the tar and nicotine yields of mainstream cigarette smoke, not to replicate actual human smoking.”

At the time, “most public health officials believed that reducing the amount of ‘tar’ in a cigarette could reduce a smoker’s risk of lung cancer; therefore, it was thought that giving consumers uniform and standardized information about the tar and nicotine yields of cigarettes would help smokers make informed decisions about the cigarettes they smoked,” he told the committee.

Humans breathe differently

But it turns out that actual human smokers don't breathe like the testing machines.

Research has shown that smokers change their smoking behavior to compensate for lower rated cigarettes, taking bigger, deeper, or more frequent puffs in order to achieve the dosage of nicotine they need, affecting the amount of tar, nicotine, and carbon monoxide they get from any particular cigarette, Kovacic said.

“The Commission has been concerned for some time that the current test method may be misleading to individual consumers who rely on the ratings it produces as indicators of the amount of tar and nicotine they actually will get from their cigarettes,” he added.

In a July 1999 report, and again in testimony given in 2003 and today, the FTC has recommended that Congress consider giving authority over cigarette testing to one of the federal government’s science-based public health agencies.

The testimony states, “Although the Commission brings a strong, market-based expertise to its scrutiny of consumer protection matters, it does not have the specialized scientific expertise needed to design and evaluate scientific test methodologies.”

Kovacic also detailed other FTC responsibilities in the area of tobacco advertising, noting that the Commission has used its authority under Section 5 of the FTC Act “to prosecute a variety of unfair and deceptive cigarette advertising practices -- including claims about tar and nicotine ratings for cigarettes.”

Commissioner Pamela Jones Harbour issued a separate concurring statement, agreeing with the Commission’s recommendation that Congress consider giving authority over cigarette testing to one of the federal government's science-based public health agencies.

Harbour added, “I would also recommend that steps be taken to prohibit the use of any claims based on the Cambridge Filter Method -- also known as ‘FTC Method’ -- for testing tar and nicotine.”

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