SUMMARY: The Food and Drug Administration moved to ban sales of menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars while announcing new guidelines for retailers selling flavored e-cigarettes in order to curb the rise in underage smoking and vaping. The ban is the biggest tobacco measure taken by the FDA in nearly a decade. Amna Nawaz interviews FDA commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb about the moves.
SUMMARY: As smoking rates have fallen in the U.S. and Europe, tobacco companies have focused their advertising elsewhere, especially Asia. In the Philippines, 25 percent of the population smokes, and cigarettes are a leading cause of death. But one former smoker is cultivating a grassroots campaign to influence legislation and publicize the dangers -- especially to children. Hari Sreenivasan reports.
ACTIVISTS: We want the pictures now! Pictures save lives!
HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour): On the streets in Manila, demonstrators march against tobacco.
ACTIVIST: We want to make our voices heard.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Their cause is supported by the medical profession here.
DR. TONY LEACHON, Philippine College of Physicians: Smoking's the number one killer in the Philippines.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Dr. Tony Leachon is the president of the Philippine College of Physicians.
DR. TONY LEACHON: For the young Filipinos, smoking is considered a macho image for men.
SMOKER: I know it's bad — it's bad for our health, but this is to relax myself out from work.
RACHEL ROSARIO, Philippine Cancer Society: Culturally, smoking seems to be an accepted mode of socialization, an accepted mode of relaxation.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Rachel Rosario is with the Philippine Cancer Society.
RACHEL ROSARIO: There is that vision of holding a cigarette and smoking with makeup — it seems to be something that we have to fight against.
SMOKER: It's really hard to kick the habit. I try to lessen it down, cut it, but then you always have that urge.
JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour): Today’s announcement by CVS that it will stop selling tobacco products this fall resounded quickly and loudly in the world of business and public health. CVS, which has 7,600 stores nationwide and is creating more in-store health clinics, said that it will lose about $2 billion annually.
But, in making the decision, the company’s chief executive, Larry Merlo, said — quote — “We have come to the conclusion that cigarettes have no place in a setting where health care is being delivered.”
For more on the significance of this decision and what was behind it, we turn to Dr. Ronald DePinho. He’s the president of the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas. And Stephanie Strom, she’s a reporter with The New York Times.
JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour): Tarnished teeth, prematurely wrinkled skin on teenage faces, and students subjected to bullying, those are the images of a new multimedia anti-smoking campaign being launched by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. It’s a $115 million campaign that will run in 200 markets over the course of a year, beginning next week, the goal, use ads like these to get through to younger Americans about the personal costs of cigarettes.
Kathy Crosby is the director of health communication and education at the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products, making her a point person on this campaign.
And she joins me now.
HARI SREENIVASAN (Newshour): This weekend marks the 50th anniversary of the landmark 1964 report by then Surgeon-General Luther Terry warning about the dangers of smoking. That report is widely credited with saving millions of lives. For more about the government's current efforts to reduce smoking, we are joined now from Washington by Rear Admiral Boris Lushniak. He is the Acting United States Surgeon General.
