Dispatch: The Real Truth Campaign

By ACSH Staff — Jul 12, 2010
Federal officials used flawed statistics to justify a ban on flavored cigarettes last year, claims Dr. Joel Nitzkin, chair of the Tobacco Control Task Force for the American Association of Public Health Physicians. At a Sept. 22, 2009, press conference, Assistant Secretary for Health Dr. Howard Koh claimed the ban “will break the cycle for 3,600 young people who start smoking daily."

Federal officials used flawed statistics to justify a ban on flavored cigarettes last year, claims Dr. Joel Nitzkin, chair of the Tobacco Control Task Force for the American Association of Public Health Physicians. At a Sept. 22, 2009, press conference, Assistant Secretary for Health Dr. Howard Koh claimed the ban “will break the cycle for 3,600 young people who start smoking daily."

Dr. Nitzkin explains why this statistic — the only one issued by the FDA as to the percentage of children and youth who will benefit from the ban on non-mentholated candy flavored cigarettes — is inaccurate:

This figure, quoted by Dr. Koh, corresponds to 100% the usual estimate of the total number of children and teens who start smoking each day…If this FDA estimate is true — that means that by banning the candy flavors we have solved the teen smoking problem and eliminated the need for any further efforts to address this issue.

“Dr. Nitzkin points out what a complete exaggeration the FDA has made out of their single regulatory policy to ban candy-flavored cigarettes,” says ACSH’s Dr. Elizabeth Whelan. “It’s far more likely that the ban of candy-flavored cigarettes will save zero lives from smoking-related diseases than the outrageously inflated figure given by Dr. Koh, as Dr. Nitzkin pointed out recently.”

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