Studies Expose Tobacco Industry

A pair of studies by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health has found that the ban on marketing cigarettes to children has proved ineffective at curbing tobacco advertisements in non-print media, and that tobacco companies are adding nicotine to chewing tobacco in order to make smokeless tobacco more addictive.

The studies—by School of Public Health professors Howard K. Koh and Gregory N. Connolly, and researcher Hillel R. Alpert—examine the state of the American tobacco industry in the wake of the 1998 settlement that included a $200-billion payment by tobacco companies and a ban on marketing cigarettes to teens.

The first study, which was published in the journal Health Affairs, found that the 1998 agreement between four tobacco companies and 46 state attorneys general effectively impeded the industry’s targeting of youth in print advertising.

The researchers measured spending on and exposure to magazine advertising for cigarettes and other tobacco products, and cigarette and smokeless tobacco preferences among youth and adults.

They found that while the settlement was effective in curtailing youth exposure to print media advertisements for cigarettes, that it was less effective when it came to reducing exposure to cigarettes through other media, or reducing exposure to other tobacco products.

The researchers also expressed support for the Family Smoking Prevention Act, legislation that would give the Food and Drug Administration the power to regulate tobacco promotion, especially advertising campaigns that are aimed at children.

The second study by the three School of Public Health professors, which was published in the journal Tobacco Control, examined whether the manipulation of nicotine content and the use of different flavorings in moist snuff was a strategy employed by tobacco companies to increase chewing tobacco use among youth.

The researchers found that tobacco companies have increased the nicotine content in some brands of moist snuff and have employed different approaches to making snuff more palatable. They also found that marketing efforts have increased, and that moist snuff usage among teens has risen.

The professors said that Congress should give the FDA the power to restrict levels of nicotine and to more forcefully regulate the chemical content of snuff in order to ensure that tobacco companies are not engineering their products to increase use among young people or boost addiction in current users.

In an interview Wednesday, Connolly said that tobacco remained a major public health problem in the United States and that more legislation is needed to combat its effects.

“We are predicting a billion tobacco related deaths this century, unless we do something about it,” said Connolly, who said that he quit smoking after working in a hospital and seeing the effects that tobacco had on patients with lung disease. “We have to look at the tobacco product itself, which is currently exempt from every major health and safety regulation.”

Despite litigation, legislation, and public health campaigns over the past decade, tobacco use among young people has actually increased in recent years.

Smoking among high school students increased to 23 percent in 2005 from 21.9 percent in 2003, and use of smokeless tobacco rose to 13.6 percent in 2005 from 11 percent in 2003, according to the article published in Health Affairs.

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