FDA Tapping Big Pharma to Knock Off the Tobacco Industry

The FDA is stocking its new tobacco advisory committee with highly-paid consultants for drug companies that market smoking cessation products. It’s a clear conflict of interest, and equally clear evidence of the federal agency being tone deaf – while other parts of the government and virtually every medical journal worldwide are acknowledging they’ve been wrong to let drug-company-paid “experts” sit on research review panels, here the FDA is tossing fairness right out the window.

A non-profit watchdog, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, is petitioning to toss two foxes out of the henhouse:

·         Dr. Neal L. Benowitz consults for Pfizer, makers of Chantix, a prescription pill that aims at nicotine receptors in the brain.

·         Jack E. Henningfield is a vice president at Pinney Associates, a consultant for GlaxoSmithKline, maker of nicotine gum, lozenges and patches.

“Everybody hates the tobacco companies, but favoring the drug companies can’t be the answer,” Melanie Sloan, executive director of the watchdog group. Their complaint against the stacked advisory panel has been filed with Department of Health & Human Service’s inspector general.

Visit SwitchToSnus.com and SwitchToSmokeless.com or buy these valuable domains by submitting your offer as a "comment" to this blog.

U.S. Cigarettes Most Dangerous in the World, It Seems

Cigarettes sold in the U.S. cause Americans to inhale more cancer-causing agents than do cigarettes sold in Canada, Britain and Australia, researchers reported on June 1, 2010. Different blends of ingredients account for the fact. The study, published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, showed that the amounts of carcinogens in cigarette butts directly correlated with tell-tale compounds in the smoker's urine.

"We know that cigarettes from around the world vary in their ingredients and the way they are produced," said Dr. Jim Pirkle of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "All of these cigarettes contain harmful levels of carcinogens, but these findings show that amounts of tobacco-specific nitrosamines differ from country to country, and U.S. brands are the highest in the study."

The popular U.S. cigarette brands studied contained "American blend" tobacco, known to contain higher TSNA levels than the "bright" tobacco used in the most popular Australian, Canadian, and British brands. Australian and Canadian smokers got more nicotine than U.S. and British smokers, but not of TSNAs. 

Visit SwitchToSnus.com and SwitchToSmokeless.com or buy these valuable domains by submitting your offer as a "comment" to this blog.