"Following numerous discussions, the two companies agreed on the need to focus their efforts on the launch of Iqos in the United States to pursue the common goal of building a smoke-free future." As André Calantzopoulos, CEO of Philip Morris International, explained the black smoke on the accord between his company and the American Altria.
According to the Philip Morris press release, Iqos is the only heated tobacco product to have obtained marketing authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration which concluded that the authorization to market the product in the USA was adequate for the protection of public health, and which, although not without risks, represents a valid alternative to cigarette smoking.
A positive response on the subject has also come from Italy, some experts have explained that e-cigarettes are not dangerous if used with certified liquids, specifying that in Italy the controls are much more stringent than those carried out in the United States: "The problem is not the electronic cigarettes, but what you put inside" commented Fabio Beatrice, director of the center anti-smoking hospital of San Giovanni Bosco in Turin.
The clarification of Philip Morris, who halted a potential $200 billion merger, followed the investigations launched in the United States on the risks deriving from the use of electronic cigarettes: it is believed that there is a correlation between the use of electronic cigarettes with uncertified substances or substances of dubious origin and nine confirmed deaths in America. It was the San Francisco prosecutor's office that launched a criminal investigation to shed light on the question of the responsibilities of the Juul company, of which Altria owns 35%. According to the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention, they have been registered at least 530 cases of lung disease among consumers of electronic cigarettes on a national scale, especially among young consumers who often used them using products from the illegal market.
“The pseudo-epidemic of deaths linked to vaping-related lung disease it has nothing to do with e-cigarettes. We need to understand the phenomenon well before pointing the finger at vaping products. A simple analysis – explained to Adnkronos Riccardo Polosa, director of Coehar, the research center for the reduction of smoking harm at the University of Catania – shows that these tools containing nicotine have never claimed any victims in the last 10 years. The problem is the arrival on the US market of products for devices without any control. In Europe there is no epidemic of diseases linked to the use of electronic cigarettes, but in an attempt to protect Italian consumers from this eventuality it is necessary to build a fruitful relationship of collaboration between regulatory bodies, experts in the field and producers".
According to Elise Rasmussen, founder and executive director of the Global Forum on Tobacco and Nicotine, the most important international meeting of the sector and which took place in Washington, “we are living in a critical moment for this industry in which there is a conflicting view on new products and their use, but we believe that the best thing is dialogue between the various subjects and sharing future choices together". In support of Rasmussen's position, over 142 thousand people have signed a petitionand launched on the "We the people-your voice in the White House" platform to ask US President Donald Trump to stop the bans on the use of electronic cigarettes promoted by the governors of some states, such as those of Massachusetts and Michigan.
The final speech of the annual tobacco forum was that of the director of the FDA Center for tobacco products, Mitch Zeller, who announced the opening of a web page 'Lungillnesses associated wireless use of lapin products' which aims to be a container of information about what is happening on the American tobacco market. In his speech Zeller recalled the preliminary data of a recent survey by the National Youth Tobacco Survey which showed that "More than 27,5% of American high school kids use e-cigarettes, especially those with fruit and menthol/mint flavours”.
“Since 2010 – added Zeller – the FDA has carried out 1,1 million inspections in tobacco shops and handed over 23 fines. The American agency worked with eBay on Juul, one of the most popular e-cigarettes among young people in the United States, to limit online sales to under 18s”. Zeller underlined the role of the FDA in encouraging the development of new technologies that are safer than traditional cigarettes: "You smoke for the nicotine but you die from the tar," he concluded.
