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Learning Objectives: Understand limitations of current testing protocols, actual parameters of human smoking, and policy implications.
Abstract:
Problem/Objective:
Cigarette smoke is a complex mixture of over 4,000 constituents, whose individual and combined health effects are not well known. The issue of how to test and ultimately regulate these constituents is a critical challenge for tobacco control policy. At present, testing protocols are based on puffing regimes that are widely acknowledged to be flawed. Alternative “intensive” testing protocols have been implemented in Canada and Massachusetts, yet the primary barrier to evaluating these protocols remains a lack of evidence on human smoking.
Methods:
Fifty-nine smokers used a portable smoking topography device for 3 separate one-week trials. For the first two trials, separated by 6 weeks, participants smoked their usual brand through the device, while half were randomly assigned to switch to a “low-yield” brand for the third one-week trial. The constituent yields of each brand were then tested under three standard machine protocols: 1) ISO, 2) Massachusetts protocol, and 3) Canada's ISO “intensive” protocol, as well as a “compensatory smoking” protocol and a human “mimic” protocol.
Results:
Smokers who were switched to a “low-yield” cigarette increased their smoke intake per cigarette by 40% (p=.007), with no significant change in their in salivary cotinine levels. Measures of “elasticity” were calculated for each brand and were found to predict nicotine uptake among smokers when combined with measures of smoke intake. All four testing protocols dramatically underestimated nicotine, tar, and carbon monoxide yields when compared to yields obtained under human smoking conditions.
Conclusions:
Current testing standards provide misleading information to consumers and regulatory bodies. Implications for policy will be discussed.
See more of Secondhand Smoke Exposure
See more of Evaluation and Surveillance
See more of The 2005 National Conference on Tobacco or Health (May 4-6, 2005)