A Public Participation Forum for the FDA Center for Tobacco Products and its Federal Advisory Committee (TPSAC)

Bloomberg

The Food and Drug Administration said it will issue preliminary findings on the health effects of menthol cigarettes this year after outside advisers review an internal report starting next month.

The U.S. market for menthol tobacco products is $25 billion a year, or about 30 percent of cigarette sales, according to data compiled by Bloomberg Government. Lorillard Inc. (LO) of Greensboro, North Carolina, makes the best-selling brand, Newport, with sales of $5 billion a year. Marlboro Menthol, made by Richmond, Virginia-based Altria Group Inc. (MO) and the Kool and Salem brands sold by Reynolds American Inc. (RAI) of Winston Salem, North Carolina, are other leading brands.

East Peoria  Times Courrier

 The proponents of a menthol ban continue to deluge the American public with studies and press statements supporting their position.

In the past several days consider:

FDA Must Ban Menthol Smokes, Louis Sullivan, Atlanta Constitution

Tobacco Giants Engage in ‘Predatory Marketing’, Stanford School of Medicine

Preceding the aforementioned actions, the American Public Health Association released a number of studies supporting a ban.

Much in the same way that water will always flow downhill, the public can expect to continue to be inundated by studies proposing a ban sponsored by organizations whose alleged mission is to protect the public health.

theage.com.au

AUSTRALIA’S plan for plain cigarette packaging has drawn fire from a bloc of poor countries, many of them reliant on money from growing tobacco.

The Dominican Republic has led a push backed by eight countries at a meeting of the World Trade Organisation in Geneva, saying it had ”serious and grave concerns” that the plain packs would hurt tobacco producers in small and vulnerable economies.

An official WTO report of proceedings said ”support or sympathy” for the Dominican Republic argument came from Honduras, Nicaragua, Ukraine, the Philippines, Zambia, Mexico, Cuba and Ecuador.

South China Morning Post

CSP Daily News

ROCKVILLE, Md. — July 21 and 22 are dates tobacco manufacturers and convenience retailers may want to circle on their calendars. The Food and Drug Administration’s Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee (TPSAC) has placed both smokeless tobacco and menthol on the agenda for its two-day meeting then.

CSP Daily News

As deadline approaches, FDA explains “proposed changes” to TPSAC report

By Linda Abu-Shalback Zid

ROCKVILLE, Md. – As the deadline approaches for the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) Center for Tobacco Products to provide a menthol review status, questions have arisen about “proposed changes” to the Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee’s (TPSAC) menthol report.

According to a Federal Register notice, at an upcoming meeting on July 21, “The committee will consider and deliberate on proposed changes to the report and adopt amendments that constitute the advice of the committee.”