A federal advisory panel on Friday said that removing menthol cigarettes from the market would benefit public health in the United States, but stopped short of recommending that the Food and Drug Administration take any specific actions, like restricting or banning the additive.
The advisory panel’s chairman, Dr. Jonathan M. Samet, a professor of medicine at the University of Southern California, said the committee had found ample scientific basis supporting its finding that menthol cigarettes were more harmful than regular cigarettes, a decision that could provide a legal basis for the F.D.A. to try to limit, phase out or even ban menthol in cigarettes.
The panel found that scientific evidence did not show that individual menthol smokers inhaled more toxins or had an increased risk of disease compared with nonmenthol smokers. But it did emphasize the public health impact, determining that the availability of menthol cigarettes made smoking more attractive to youth, more appealing to African-Americans and others because the flavor was less harsh, and that it contributed to higher rates of smoking among these groups. “Removal of menthol cigarettes from the marketplace would benefit public health in the United States,” the panel’s report concluded.
Menthol was first added to cigarettes since the 1920s to make them less harsh. While Congress banned candy, fruit and spice flavoring in tobacco products, it deferred tackling the difficult issue of menthol to the F.D.A. when it gave the agency broad authority to regulate tobacco products under a new law passed in 2009.
The report issued on Friday by the panel, known officially as the Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee, represents the first salvo in what is expected to be a lengthy test of the F.D.A.’s regulatory muscle when it comes to further restrictions on nicotine and menthol. The F.D.A will review the findings of the panel, and perform a separate research and policy study, Dr. Lawrence R. Deyton, director of the F.D.A. Center for Tobacco Products, said on Friday after the advisory group wrapped up a year of work. “Now it’s up to us to do our job,” Dr. Deyton said, adding that the agency would release a progress report in about three months.
Any government action would be preceded by a proposed rule and another round of public comments and no doubt, litigation. Two tobacco companies filed a lawsuit last month to try to block the advisory committee action or force the F.D.A. to disregard its advice, saying three of the eight panel members had financial conflicts of interest from legal and consulting work against tobacco companies, a claim the F.D.A. denied.
While some antismoking advocates hailed the panel’s findings as the first big step toward recognizing that menthol should be banned, others criticized the committee for not taking a stronger stand that would send a powerful signal to the F.D.A.
Industry analysts said they believed the F.D.A. might take a moderate action at most. Stock in Lorillard Tobacco, the Greensboro, N.C., company that is more than 90 percent dependent on menthol revenue with its leading Newport brand, closed more than 10 percent higher on Friday after the advisory panel issued its report. Menthol accounts for an estimated 27 percent of the $80 billion cigarette market in the United States and 19 million smokers — a disproportionate number of whom are African-Americans, younger and have lower incomes. Menthol is preferred by more than 80 percent of black smokers, about 22 percent of non-Hispanic white smokers and nearly half of 12- to 17-year-old smokers, according to government surveys.
Gregory N. Connolly, a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, who resigned from the scientific panel in December, said its failure to recommend a phase-out of menthol was “unfortunate” and would harm African-Americans. The new federal law asked the panel to make recommendations, he said.
“This is a huge victory for Lorillard,” Dr. Michael Siegel, a tobacco expert and professor at the Boston University School of Public Health, wrote. He said the committee’s failure to recommend policy “swept the issue under the rug by giving the F.D.A. an out.”
Other health advocates greeted the panel’s findings in a more positive way. “This is the most conclusive scientific finding that menthol cigarettes dramatically increase youth tobacco use and make it more difficult for African-Americans to quit,” said Matthew L. Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. “It creates a scientific record which compels F.D.A. to act.”
Dorothy K. Hatsukami, a panel member and professor from the Tobacco Use Research Center at the University of Minnesota, said scientific literature showed smokers who started younger were more likely to have trouble quitting and to die from smoking. “This is the population that’s particularly vulnerable to the effects of menthol cigarette smoking,” Dr. Hatsukami said.
Jonathan Daniel Heck, Lorillard’s principal scientist and a nonvoting panel member, disputed the advocates’ views, arguing that there was no evidence that menthol promoted youth smoking or made it harder to quit. Lower quitting rates by black smokers may be caused by socioeconomic or genetic factors, not menthol, the Lorillard report said.
Industry analysts cited a variety of reasons they believed the F.D.A. would not ban menthol. Nik Modi of UBS said governments could lose billions in tax revenue if menthol smokers switched to buying in underground markets. State and federal governments collect about $43 billion a year in cigarette excise taxes, UBS said.
According to Moody’s Investor Services, prohibiting menthol cigarettes would cut overall sales by up to 10 percent. David Adelman of Morgan Stanley Research predicted that the F.D.A. would probably seek more research, including studies of the unintended effects of such a ban, like the creation of a big underground market. He, too, anticipates a "more moderate" finding by the agency than that of the scientific panel on the public health effects, pointing out the lack of evidence suggesting that menthol harms individual smokers more than nonmenthol cigarettes.
And Mr. Modi wrote earlier this month, “F.D.A. does not want to see Big Tobacco in court.”
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: March 18, 2011
An earlier version of this article misstated that Jonathan M. Samet was a professor of medicine at U.C.L.A.
