Smoking and Tobacco Control Monograph No. 7 
DR. HATSUKAMI: You mentioned changing the intensity of smoking. 
I would like to know how you determine those parameters; how do you 
determine the number of puffs that should be taken, the range of puffs that 
should be taken, or the volume that should be taken; what should that be 
based on? 
DR. BENOWITZ: 1 have not looked at the current studies to see what is 
available, but 1 think you could do that on the basis of looking at 
observations, say in people who are smoking low-yield cigarettes and seeing 
what they do. 
DR. HATSUKAMI: With the minimum and the maximum ranges in terms of 
number of puffs? 
DR. BENOWITZ: 1 do not think a minimum is really necessary. I actually 
believe that we should continue to report the standard FTC method mostly 
because 1 would like to know how current cigarettes compare to cigarettes 
marketed 20 years ago so we could have that as sort of a minimum because 
in fact, you know, it is my belief, based on the evidence, that for the vast 
majority of cigarettes the FTC method underestimates exposure. So, we 
could still have that as a minimum exposure, and then we could have the 
test method to show what a smoker might get if they smoke in an intense 
way, which could then be specified. 
DR. FREEMAN: Dr. Bock? 
DR. BOCK: It does not make a lot of difference to me whether the 
ranking is changed or not. When you put down an average and a standard 
deviation, sophisticated people can understand whether the differences in 
the average are important, and a range will give that kind of information 
to unsophisticated people, and that is where I think the big advantage of 
a range is. Whether it changes the ranking, it will say that if the cigarettes 
are very closely ranked one above the other, it really does not matter very 
much which is the reality of the situation. 
DR. FREEMAN: Dr. Hughes? 
DR. HUGHES: You asked if there is any disagreement. I have a little bit of 
a disagreement, in that 1 am still worried about reporting numbers. 1 could 
go along with numbers if there were a disclaimer that says that 10 mg of 
tar does not cut your risk in half compared to 20 mg of tar. 1 am still very 
concerned that even if we give ranges that people are going to look at the 
averages and think that 10 gives you half the health risk of a 20, but it does 
not. 
DR. FREEMAN: Dr. Hughes, what would you recommend in that case? 
DR. HUGH US: You could go with either the nonnumerical system where 
you certainly had a band and put them in or numbers as long as there is a 
disclaimer that these are not cardinal numbers. That can be communicated 
fairly easily by doing that. 
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