August 7, 2017 – Reduced Risk

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Anchor lead: Should lawmakers be persuaded by so-called reduced risk tobacco products? Elizabeth Tracey reports

Are smokeless tobacco products okay to use? The FDA is grappling with this issue as tobacco product manufacturers ask for a designation called ‘modified risk’ from the agency. Enid Neptune, a lung expert at Johns Hopkins, frames up the arguments manufacturers are using.

Neptune: It’s already known and established, smokeless tobacco less toxic, less harmful than conventional cigarettes, combustible cigarettes and cigars. No one would debate that fact, but they use it in a way that I think is problematic because they use that comparison to support the use of these products, as, and they never quite say it, but what they want to say is these products are safe. And that’s a term that cannot be assigned to these products because they’re less toxic than conventional cigarettes and cigars.   :33

Neptune notes that health risks of smokeless tobacco products are emerging, and that use of any tobacco products at all should not be promoted. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.