Chapter 4 
As stated by Samet (this volume), available evidence indicates that 
smoking lower tar cigarettes only minimally reduces smokers' health risks. 
The reduced prevalence of cessation among smokers who have switched 
brands and smokers of low-yield cigarettes, coupled with beliefs among some 
in the public that these cigarettes are safer, suggest that low-yield cigarettes 
'I have kept many smokers smoking who otherwise might have quit. The net 
1 effect of the introduction and mass marketing of these brands, then, may 
j have been and may continue to be an increased number of smoking- 
attributable deaths. 
j QUESTION-AND- ANSWER SESSION 
I 
! DR. SHIFFMAN: I don't know if you have these data, but 1 am wondering, 
! when smokers in these surveys make a deliberate switch, do you have a sense 
j of how big a jump they make in the FTC tar and nicotine values? 
1 
DR. GIOVINO: We have begun to look at the issue of the penultimate brand 
! vs. the current or the last brand. The reason I can't give you a direct answer 
is because we looked at it as a function of whether or not they smoke more 
now or less now. And 1 will have to check this, but I think it was about 
.2 mg nicotine. 
DR. HOFFMANN; We know now that nicotine is one major reason that 
people smoke or chew tobacco. Therefore, you could have classified your 
groupings according to nicotine, which I would have done, because that is 
why people smoke; it is not for the tar. 
DR. GIOVINO: 1 think the analysis clearly could be done both ways, and 
I understand your reasoning. The reason that I felt comfortable with tar is 
because it is based on perceptions. A lot of this is based on perceptions of 
health risks. 
My guess is that they are so highly correlated that the analysis would 
find very similar findings, and if the committee would like me to do that, 
we can certainly do that. 
DR. PETITTI: This is a pretty technical question, but your last slide had a 
conclusion that low-tar smokers are less likely to be former smokers and 
switchers are less likely to be former smokers. 1 presume those are age 
I adjusted? 
DR. GIOVINO: We did age-specific analyses. We did not have time to do 
age-adjusted analyses. We used three age categories: 17 to 34 years, 35 to 
64 years, and 65 plus years. For switching, the relationship held in every 
category; for low tar, it held in every category except the 17 to 34 category. 
DR. BENOWITZ: I wonder if you have any information on smoking of the 
really ultralows, like 1 mg and below, because there is some evidence that 
the yields from those are really fundamentally different, and I will be talking 
about that later. But do you Imow anything about the characteristics of 
those smokers? 
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