Center for Tobacco Products News

GREENSBORO, N.C. — U.S. Food & Drug Administration commissioner Margaret Hamburg made headlines last week when she told an FDA science panel to “follow the science wherever it leads and the rest will fall into place.” With Hamburg’s words on the screen beside him, a Lorillard Tobacco Co. scientist on Friday called upon the FDA’s Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee (TPSAC) to employ a “truly science-based, data-driven” process in its evaluation of menthol in cigarettes.

TPSAC held meetings on July 15 and July 16. It heard industry presentations on how menthol is used in cigarettes, health effects, marketing efforts and impacts on specific groups of people.

Click here to view the full meeting agenda.

Click here to view the full video of the July 15 TPSAC meeting.

Click here to view the full video of the July 16 TPSAC meeting (to be posted shortly).

And click here to view TPSAC materials, including a committee roster and statements submitted by Richmond, Va.-based Altria Client Services (Phillip Morris USA), Greensboro, N.C.-based Lorillard and Winston-Salem, N.C.-based R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.

“The data is overwhelming and consistent—menthol has no effect on the health risks of smoking,” Dr. William R. True, senior vice president, research and development, said in a presentation at the conclusion of two days of committee hearings.

The process of evaluating the health effects of menthol “seems to have begun with an underlying presumption by several committee members that menthol must have some adverse effect and, despite all the evidence to the contrary, the committee members keep searching for some data that might support their presumption,” True said.

“Science has to be dispassionate,” he said. “When the data doesn’t support the hypothesis, the hypothesis must be abandoned. That is the scientific method; that is sound science.”

Legislation signed into law last year authorized the FDA to regulate cigarettes and other tobacco products. One provision of the law mandated the creation of TPSAC, which will submit a report and recommendation on the use of menthol in cigarettes to the FDA.

Lorillard is the third largest manufacturer of cigarettes in the United States. Newport, Lorillard’s flagship menthol-flavored premium cigarette brand, is the top-selling menthol and second-largest selling cigarette in the United States. In addition to Newport, the Lorillard product line has five additional brand families marketed under the Kent, True, Maverick, Old Gold and Max brand names. These six brands include 41 different product offerings which vary in price, taste, flavor, length and packaging.

(Click here for previous CSP Daily News coverage of the FDA’s menthol meetings.)