Back to Annual Meeting

Back to Annual Meeting

APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Colleen Bouzan, MS, Vaughan W. Rees, PhD, Geoffrey Ferris Wayne, MA, and Gregory N. Connolly, DMD, MPH. Division of Public Health Practice, Harvard School of Public Health, 677 Huntington Ave, Landmark Building, Level 3 East, Boston, MA 02115, 617-496 0888, cbouzan@hsph.harvard.edu

Potentially Reduced Exposure Products (PREPs) purport to reduce exposure and lower health risks associated with smoking. While multiple approaches have been used to assess PREPs, standard cancer risk assessment has not been applied. The new carbon-filtered PREP, Marlboro UltraSmooth (MUS), has reduced toxic smoke emissions when measured using the standard FTC 35 ml puff volume machine smoking regimen. However, human smoking data indicate that actual puffing of MUS is better represented by the more intensive Health Canada machine smoking regimen (55 ml puff volume). Annual cancer risk, using standard risk assessment principles, was estimated for MUS and a conventional ultra-light cigarette. Exposure dose of 11 carcinogenic mainstream smoke constituents was calculated by multiplying smoke constituent yields by daily consumption as indicated by human smoking data. Estimated cancer risk was then derived by multiplying daily dose by corresponding EPA-provided cancer potency value. Annual cancer risk based on standard FTC machine yields was 10/million for MUS, compared with 90/million for the conventional cigarette. However, carcinogen doses estimated by the more representative intensive machine yield method found annual MUS risk to be 120/million, compared with 340/million for conventional. All values exceeded the standard regulatory benchmark of 1/million. These data provide an exploratory basis for ranking cancer risk of cigarettes marketed as reduced exposure. MUS cancer risk is more comparable to a conventional cigarette when intensive smoking parameters are considered. These findings have significant implications for evaluation of implied or explicit claims of reduced harm for MUS and other PREPs.

Learning Objectives:

• Describe use of standard risk assessment in evaluating tobacco products
• Develop a strategy for comparing health risk of PREPs compared conventional cigarettes
• Articulate the public health implications of reduced exposure tobacco products

Keywords: Tobacco Control, Risk Assessment

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Not Answered