FTC Asks Surgeon General to Review Smokeless Tobacco

The Federal Trade Commission today asked Surgeon General C. Everett Koop to conduct “a comprehensive review” of smokeless tobacco that could lead to health warnings similar to those for cigarettes.

There was no immediate response from Koop, who last month wrote to the FTC, “Smokeless tobacco, including snuff, does indeed pose a cancer threat and is associated as well with certain other pathologic oral conditions.”

The FTC urged Koop to appoint a panel of experts to examine existing evidence on the health effects of the popular products, which are used by an estimated 22 million Americans.

A similar panel appointed by the surgeon general in 1964 concluded that cigarettes are hazardous. That led to a ban on cigarette advertising on radio and television, as well as health warnings on packages and printed ads.

The commission said in a statement that it believes smokeless tobacco products--chewing tobacco and snuff--”raise very serious health concerns.”

Koop’s letter to the FTC came in response to a plea by the Public Citizen Health Research Group, a private organization, that he support its year-old petition to the FTC for warnings on smokeless tobacco.

The FTC, in its letter today, asked Koop to conduct a “comprehensive review of the existing scientific evidence on the health effects of smokeless tobacco.”

“We hope the surgeon general will give us a definitive answer, as was done with cigarettes, so we can then decide what course of action to take,” an FTC spokeswoman said.

“Koop has already gone on record that he thinks smokeless tobacco causes cancer,” said Dr. Sydney Wolfe, director of Public Citizen Health Research Group. “What we need is action, not more delays.”

Wolfe said that during the last 20 years “there has been a decline in the number of smokers but . . . an increase, particularly by younger people, in the use of smokeless tobacco. They need to be warned.”