Tobacco Center Faculty Blog

December 13, 2012

Stanton A. Glantz, PhD

Today the Associated Press published a long story headlined "FDA review of tobacco products grinds to a halt" reporting that the FDA has not acted on "nearly 3500" product applications and quoted several industry executives complaining about the delay as well as Matt Myers from Tobacco Free Kids saying, "They [the tobacco companies] have the burden of demonstrating that new products and product changes won't increase youth tobacco use, won't increase toxicity and won't wrongly deter people from quitting." 

The AP also reported that Dr. Lawrence Deyton, director of FDA's Center for Tobacco Products, said the agency is working with companies to get more information about products and hopes the industry will be more transparent about its reasoning that product changes don't affect public health.  Deyton noted that small changes in ingredients or additives can make a cigarette more addictive or harmful, continuing. "Though cigarettes seem like a very simple product - chopped-up tobacco rolled in paper ... we know that cigarettes are highly engineered. They're technologically incredibly sophisticated." 

December 10, 2012

Stanton A. Glantz, PhD

I normally do not comment on Mike Siegel's blog because he has long since lost all credibility with me as a scientist.  He praises any study -- no matter how poorly done -- if it supports his ideological position that he is the one ethical voice in tobacco and trashes any study -- no matter how well done -- if it does not.

His latest commentary, on my praise for the Congressional Budget Office analysis of the effect of a 50 cent tobacco tax increase (indexed to inflation) on federal spending so seriously misrepresents my position that it warrants response.

Here is what Siegel said:

December 8, 2012

Stanton A. Glantz, PhD

Several people asked me what Sony could do to revise its policy on smoking in movies to actually impact the levels of smoking in its youth-rated films.  Here it is, with additions in italics and deletions in strikeout.

December 7, 2012

Stanton A. Glantz, PhD

Sony Pictures Entertainment just announced that is has a policy on smoking in movies (effective December 1, 2012).

The policy states:

December 3, 2012

Stanton A. Glantz, PhD

The Congressional Budget Office just published an important article, “Cigarette Taxes and the Federal Budget — Report from the CBO,”  in the New England Journal of Medicine on the health and economic effects of a 50 cent increase in the cigarette tax (which is indexed to increase with inflation).  The full report is available from the Congressional Budget Office here.  It is the most comprehensive and careful analysis of the long-term fiscal implications of a tobacco control policy I have ever seen.

The CBO prepared a sophisticated demographic analysis that includes people aging into and out of the years that people smoke as well as the effects of quitting smoking on not only health care costs but also time in the workforce when people would be paying taxes as well as effects on living longer.

Key conclusions include:

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