FDA Panel Calls for Menthol Marketing Data as Industry Defends Flavoring

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee called on tobacco companies to provide manufacturing and marketing data related to menthol cigarettes as the panel works to determine the future of the flavoring, Bloomberg reported March 31.

Tobacco companies, meanwhile, defended their use of menthol in cigarettes, saying that the additive does not increase the health risks of smoking relative to other cigarettes, the Wall Street Journal reported March 31.

The Scientific Advisory Committee requested that the tobacco companies provide the information on menthol cigarettes ahead of the panel’s next meeting, scheduled to take place in six months. “I think we have to know, is menthol essential to smoking?” said panel member Gregory Connolly of the Harvard School of Public Health. “Why is menthol used? What are the types of menthol we’re talking about? How is it delivered? Is it delivered in the paper, in the wrapper, in the filter?”

The committee is charged by law with producing recommendations on how to regulate — or possibly ban — menthol cigarettes by March 2012. The FDA tobacco-regulation bill passed by Congress last year banned all other cigarette flavorings.