Smoking and Tobacco Control Monograph No. 7 
MR. PEELER: Again, by the time the Commission adopted the methodology 
in 1967, the Commission was very clear that it was not trying to establish 
average smoking parameters. 
DR. BOCK: 1 think that it goes back to the 1938 paper by the American 
Tobacco Company group. 1 talked with Bradford and Harlan in Richmond 
in 1953, and they, again, had gone to parties and watched what their friends 
were doing. They were the same parameters, 1 believe, and it was based on 
a group of probably upper-middle-income-level Richmondites. 
DR. SHIFFMAN: You mentioned that the original FTC action on this was 
under the FTC's general authority to prevent deceptive advertising. Now, 
at the moment, you are also reporting the results of these tests to Congress. 
Has there been any evolution in the FTC's authority in this area, or is it 
still under this broad mandate? 
MR. PEELER: No. The FTC's involvement in this issue continues to be under 
its authority to regulate deceptive or unsubstantiated claims in advertising. 
And, in the case of tar and nicotine testing in particular, there are two 
variations: (1) We do have a voluntary agreement from the industry to 
include this information in their advertising, and (2) we have had this 
longstanding practice of sending the reports of this testing to Congress, 
which was originally established in response to requests from the Commerce 
Committee. But the only legal authority that we have in this area is our 
authority to require claims in advertising to be truthful and to be 
substantiated. 
DR. COHEN: 1 want to return to the point of the statistical significance of the 
yields. 1 think that is a very central question for the record. 1 would just like 
to point out that there are three different sources of variance here that ought 
to be considered: (1) variance due to product characteristics, such as product 
design features; (2) variance due to individual smoking characteristics; and 
(3) variance due to testing methodology. 
Each of those sources of variance can be estimated separately, and it 
may be very important later on, as the panel does its work, to consider the 
implications of variance in each of those three separately. 
REFERENCES 
Bradford, J. A., Harlan, W.R., Hanmcr, H.R. Nature of 
cigarette smoke. Technique of experimental 
smoking. Industrial and Engineering (Chemistry 28(7): 
836-839, 1936. 
Ogg, C.L. Determination of particulate matter and 
alkaloids (as nicotine) in cigarette smoke, foumal of 
the Association of Official Agricultural Chemists 47: 
356, 1964. 
14 
