Tobacco’s new cigarette sleek, smokeless - but is it healthier?
PHILIP Morris says it has created a less toxic cigarette - an innovation it claims could save lives and eliminate smoking in America.
The new technology, called IQOS, consists of a tube that gently heats up sticks of tobacco instead of burning them. By using heat instead of flame, the company says, IQOS eradicates 90 per cent to 95 per cent of toxic compounds in cigarette smoke.
The Food and Drug Administration is expected to decide in the next two months whether to allow IQOS into the US market. And that has triggered heated debate and worries among health experts about whether IQOS will help or hurt public health in this country.
Among their most pressing concerns: Whether the new device will lower tobacco-related deaths, or if it is just substituting one harmful product for another.
Fuelling such doubts is the fact that many of America’s leading health organisations and experts remain deeply suspicious of Philip Morris.
This is the company, they point out, that makes Marlboro - the world’s best-selling cigarette and misled the public for years about the hazards of smoking.
“They are masterful liars. That’s not an exaggeration that’s a fact proven by decades of evidence,” said Matthew Myers, long-time president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. “So the question we’re all asking ourselves is: What’s their ultimate game plan with this thing?”
Only one independent study so far has examined the risks of IQOS and found higher levels of several toxic compounds produced by the device than Philip Morris has claimed. The company’s response to the study was so forceful that the independent researchers have now gone silent, refusing to talk publicly about their work.
Even if Philip Morris’ health claims turn out to be true, health officials warn, IQOS could be a Trojan horse. Smoking in America has dropped to an alltime low. Some health advocates worry Philip Morris - which spent US$3 billion (RM13.5 billion) to develop IQOS - wants to use its new machine to halt that progress. If IQOS attracts new smokers, it could hook a new generation on nicotine.
“The scepticism is not surprising for us,” said one of Philip Morris’ chief scientists, Moira Gilchrist. “You don’t have to trust or believe us. You don’t have to take our word for it. But what we ask is that people have an open mind. Look at the science we’ve done on this and base your decision on that.”
But even the harshest sceptics acknowledge that there is a chance Philip Morris is right and IQOS could save lives.
“If we’re being honest, we’re dealing with a big unknown here,” said Myers, who has fought for three decades to keep tobacco products away from kids. “One thing’s for sure: The stakes here are huge.”
On a recent sunny day, standing outside Philip Morris’ Washington office - just two blocks from the White House Gilchrist clicked open a smooth, sleek battery pack.
With two fingers, she pulled out what looked like a hollowedout electronic cigar - the latest IQOS prototype.
To use it, she explained, you push into its hollow end a short modified cigarette, called a HeatStick. A heating blade inside the IQOS pierces the HeatStick and gently warms the tobacco inside.
Gilchrist lifted the IQOS and took a long drag. As she exhaled, a slight musty-sweet smell permeated the air.
“Because there’s no combustion involved, there’s no smoke,” she said.
Unlike vaping machines, which use a liquid solution to deliver nicotine, the IQOS deliberately uses tobacco. Many smokers have trouble quitting cigarettes even after trying vaping, studies have shown. Philip Morris scientists argue that for smokers to quit, you need to offer something with the same buzz and taste of tobacco.
“You have to give them that satisfying experience,” Gilchrist said. “You have to deliver nicotine at roughly the same speed and amount.”
The first thing that now greets customers on Philip Morris’ home page is this question: “How long will the world’s leading cigarette company be in the cigarette business?”
Philip Morris chief executive André Calantzopoulos predicts that smokeless products like IQOS will one day be so common that his company stops selling all regular cigarettes. In a recent interview with the BBC, he said, “I hope this time will come soon.”
The company - which makes the world’s best-selling cigarette - has built a new US$120 million research centre in Switzerland to focus entirely on smokeless products. The gleaming glassenclosed facility, called the Cube, consists of three wings - dubbed Earth, Wind and Air. (There is, notably, no section named Fire.) Of all the Cube’s new products, IQOS is the most advanced. It is now sold in 25 countries.
But the clearest sign of its potential has been Japan.
Last spring, IQOS became available country-wide there, and in the brief time since, IQOS has grabbed 10 per cent of Japan’s tobacco market - a feat that has investors salivating over its US prospects.
Philip Morris says 72 per cent of users in Japan quit cigarettes entirely and converted to IQOS.
That’s significantly higher than the seven per cent quit rate among those who tried vaping and six per cent quit rate of nicotine patch users in a trial published by the journal Lancet.
Japanese demand has so outstripped capacity that Philip Morris can’t produce HeatSticks fast enough.
It had to limit the number of IQOS devices sold in Japan. And last month, it shut down two cigarette plants in Europe to convert them into HeatStick factories.
This year, the company plans to more than triple its manufacturing capacity, from 15 billion HeatSticks to 50 billion. By the end of 2018, it plans to produce 100 billion.
Two months ago, three Swiss researchers published the only independent study so far on IQOS’s health risks. — WPBloomberg
Among their most pressing concerns: Whether the new device will lower tobacco-related deaths, or if it is just substituting one harmful product for another.