Agency wants more clarity about health risks, effects of new products
Jump to full article: Winston-Salem (NC) Journal, 2009-11-01
Author: Richard Craver * Journal Reporter
Intro: Is using smokeless tobacco just as harmful as smoking, or is it potentially a safer option?
Getting a definitive answer to that question has proved elusive despite centuries of medical research.
Resolving the issue, and providing clarity amid the heated rhetoric, has prompted a new series of medical studies sponsored by the National Cancer Institute.
One set focuses on whether such smokeless products as snus and the dissolvable products from R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., provide "a truly less-harmful alternative to conventional tobacco products, both at the individual and population level," according to the institute's grant application.
Another set, including one that was started Sept. 1 at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, is aimed at developing strategy to encourage reduced use or even quitting smokeless-tobacco products. Wake Forest is receiving a $2.9 million grant for its study.
Maura Payne, a spokeswoman for Reynolds, said that the company supports "well-designed studies" that could help develop science-based, tobacco-harm-reduction strategies." Payne said that Reynolds does not promote its new smokeless products as a way to quit smoking.
The institute said that the studies are necessary because "previous tobacco-use reduction efforts pursued by the public-health community were disadvantaged by incomplete knowledge and methods for evaluating the health impact of modified tobacco products."
Jump to full article » |