Cigarettes said made with hazardous chemicals

WASHINGTON (Reuter): Among the 700 ingredients used to make cigarettes are 13 chemicals that are deemed too dangerous to be used in foods, National Public Radio reported last week.

The radio report said five of the chemicals are listed as hazardous, and one causes convulsions in animals. Another ingredient, ammonia, can irritate the skin, eyes and respiratory tract.

The Tobacco Institute, the industry umbrella organization, said all cigarette ingredients were thoroughly reviewed by industry and outside scientists. "At the level used, the ingredients do not pose health risks to smokers," it said.

It said that a list of commonly used cigarette ingredients, as well as information about those ingredients, has been routinely given to the government for over a decade.

But it said the list was confidential and it could not confirm the presence of any particular substance on the list.

Department of Health and Human Services spokesman Victor Zonana also said he could neither confirm nor deny the National Public Radio report since the government was barred by law from revealing ingredients used in making cigarettes.

But he said the government believes, regardless of the ingredients involved, "cigarettes are hazardous to health."

The tobacco industry has come under sharp scrutiny recently after allegations that cigarette makers manipulate nicotine levels to keep smokers addicted. The cigarette makers have denied such accusations, and Philip Morris filed a libel suit against ABC for its recent report on the topic.

Under a long-standing agreement with the tobacco industry eager to protect trade secrets, the government has kept secret a list of the ingredients used to make cigarettes.

Current version

NPR said it had obtained a list of 13 ingredients on the 1992 list, the most current version, and analyzed them with the help of outside experts and scientific databases.

It identified one chemical, Methoprene, as a pesticide used to kill insects on stored tobacco and said another, Sclareol, can react with other chemicals to produce convulsions.

Because they are not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, the cigarette makers can use those ingredients.

NPR said some of the chemicals were extremely obscure, and it was not known at what doses they could be harmful to humans.

The report quoted Congressman Ron Wyden, a Democrat of Oregon, as saying, "Cigarettes contain ingredients so toxic that you could not dump them in a landfill under the federal environmental laws."

Toxicologist Barry Rumack said, "What we do not know with these chemicals is...what their concentration is in the final product, and we additionally don't know what combination of these chemicals are in that final product.... We do not know what the effects would be on a human being."

But toxicology consultant John Frawley, who has done work for tobacco companies, told NPR he has studied cigarette ingredients exhaustively and concluded "each and every one of the ingredients that are added to cigarettes are safe."

NPR said other experts criticized the secrecy of the list, and called for public research and scrutiny. A Congressional panel, led by California Democrat Henry Waxman, is also looking into the secrecy issue.