Mr. Chairman, I do thank you for holding today’s hearing.  I think there is a lot that remains to be done in this area. The FTC has been using the same rating system to measure tar, nicotine, and carbon monoxide yields for 40 years, so I am told, yet cigarette design has not remained the same during this time period.  There are concerns that consumers are being misled by the cigarette rating system that is currently in use as it relates to light and low tar cigarettes. 

The test machine was not intended to imitate human smokers, yet that is how consumers are interpreting the test results.  I look forward to hearing the witnesses today and I am pleased you have held this hearing Mr. Chairman.

 

 

Honorable Kovacic: This is something I can clarify for you afterwards.

 

Sen. Stevens:  Who posses them?

 

Honorable Kovacic: The testing is done by a trade association that does the test; we subpoena on a regular basis the data and post it on our website.

 

Sen. Stevens:  Are you prohibited from testing?

 

Honorable Kovacic: We are not Senator, we abandoned are own testing, we used to have variants of these elegant machines on the top floor of our building, until the mid 1980’s where the cost of maintaining them became relatively high and we began to realize the limitations of our own expertise to do this work.

 

Sen. Stevens:  Dr. Backinger, does NCI have any testing machines?

 

Dr. Backinger: No we do not.

 

Sen. Stevens:  Dr. Ashley, do you have any testing machines?

 

Dr. Ashley:  Yes sir, we do.

 

Sen. Stevens:  Where did you get them?

 

Dr. Ashley:  We purchased them as part of our program looking at the impact of the design of cigarettes on emissions…

 

Sen. Stevens:  That’s not the questions, where did you get them?

 

Dr. Ashley:  We purchased them from manufacturers who make the machines.

 

Sen. Stevens:  They make them for the same testing organizations that’s not federal?

 

Dr. Ashley:  They make them for whatever consumer would purchase them.  They are purchased largely by the tobacco industry.  We got our tobacco smoking machine from the same companies that make them for the industry.

 

Sen. Stevens:  It’s the same ones that Mr. Kovacic is talking about right?

 

Dr. Ashley:  Yes sir.

 

Sen. Stevens:  Have any of you ever asked Congress for money to produce your own machines? 

 

Dr. Ashley:  If I can try to clarify something, the machine itself…

 

Sen. Stevens:  I really have a shortage of time doctor.  Just, would you please answer my question?  Has anyone in your agencies ever asked Congress to give you money to replicate those machines, to make build better machines?

 

Dr. Ashley:  No sir.

 

Sen. Stevens:  How long are these machines going to be?  Dr. Kovacic, when were they made?

 

Honorable Kovacic: I believe in the 1960’s, the original design.

 

Sen. Stevens: The even predates my presence in the Congress.  That’s pretty old.  I just don’t understand.  Tell me this, I’m shifting over now, have you done a study on increasing taxes on cigarettes and how it’s affecting consumers?   Any of you? 

 

Dr. Backinger: The NCI has supported research through extramural funding to look at the increase of price on price of cigarettes on consumption and prevalence and we actually, one of our monographs addresses that.  I don’t have that information with me specifically today, but research does show as you increase the price of cigarettes, it both affects youth smoking and adult smoking. 

 

Sen. Stevens: Did that cover the question of bootlegging cigarettes as a result of increased taxes? 

 

Dr. Backinger: I don’t know that off the top of my head.  I would need to check back with that and get back to you on the record.  

 

Sen. Stevens: Do any of your agencies have jurisdiction over pursuing those who bootleg cigarettes, who sell them, notwithstanding a federal loss?

 

Honorable Kovacic: We generally wouldn’t Senator, no.  We could prosecute people who misrepresent the source of the cigarette, who advertise cigarettes coming from one source, but receive them from another.  But the actual policing of bootlegging, counterfeiting, that’s beyond our authority.

 

Sen. Stevens: It’s up to the state because it’s basically their taxes, is that right?

 

Honorable Kovacic: Or I would assume Senator, Customs and Border Patrol that deal with cross border movement.  

 

Sen. Stevens: Did you start to say something Dr. Ashley?

 

Dr. Ashley:  There is a federal agency that deals with that, it’s not CDC. 

 

Sen. Stevens: Just one last question.  As part of our Congressional involvement, we did require at the cigarette manufacturers to do a certain amount of advertising.  I’ve seen some recently, as matter of fact, on television and radio and I think even in the printed media about trying to direct at young people, at children and trying to prevent them to start smoking.  Have any of you studied the results of those advertisements we required?

 

Dr. Backinger: The National Cancer Institute did fund one study in that arena, which was published in the December 2006 American Journal of Public Health and I could provide that article for you and for the record.  Just off the top of my head, the research found that youth that saw those ads on tv did not help prevent smoking initiation.  

 

Sen. Stevens: Since that basic settlement we were all part of, has there been an increase or decrease in cigarette smoking in young people?

 

Dr. Backinger: For the latest years that are available, and I would have to look at that again, youth smoking has increased slightly in the last two years for which we have data, slightly.

 

Sen. Stevens: Last irrelevant question, but my colleague has mentioned the fact we were all given so many free cigarettes.  My friends and I were never seduced by those cigarettes, didn’t smoke cigarettes, we smoked pipes.  Have you ever made any studies of pipes and its connection to cancer?

 

Dr. Ashley:  We have not studied pipes. 

 

Sen. Stevens: Dr. Backinger?

 

Dr. Backinger: I am not aware of any NCI funded research on pipes specifically, but I could check.

 

Sen. Stevens: Well, I’d be interested.  I quit a long time ago anyway, but I just wondered if there was any connection between pipe smoking, as well as the cigarette smoking.  What about cigars?  Have you done studies of cigars?

 

Dr. Backinger: NCI did look at cigars and during the 90’s when there was an increase and prevalence of smoking of cigars and we do have a NCI monograph on that subject.  Just the other comment, however, is all tobacco, regardless of its form is hazardous and causes a variety of cancers as well as other diseases. 

 

Sen. Stevens: Did your monograph compare the basic results of smoking different types of substances, like pipes, tobacco, or cigarettes?

 

Dr. Backinger: the cigar monograph was focused solely on the various types of cigars that were available at the time.  

 

Sen. Stevens: Well, I thank you very much. I thank you for your testimony.  I’m a little disturbed.  This is the first time I’ve heard about those machines, not that our government testing was not done by the machines that the industry developed.  Thank you.