The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of the United States has proposed the product standards for prohibiting menthol as a flavor in cigarettes and also prohibiting all the characterizing flavors in the cigars other than tobacco.
These actions are also having the potential for significantly decreasing the disease and death from the combusted use of the tobacco product, which has been the leading cause of the preventable death in the United States through the process of decreasing the youth addiction and experimentation and decreasing the number of smokers.
Xavier Becerra, Health and Human Services Secretary said, the proposed rules will be helpful in preventing the children from becoming the next generation of smokers and also helping the smokers to quit smoking. In addition, the proposed rules have been representing an important step for advancing the health equity by significantly decreasing the health problems related to tobacco.
The proposed product standards from the US FDA are mainly based on the clear science and evidence that is establishing the addictiveness and also harmfulness of these products and building on the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, which has restricted all the characterizing flavors in the cigarettes in 2009.
Robert M. Califf, commissioner of US FDA said, the authority for adopting tobacco product standards has been one of the most powerful tools the government has given to the US FDA and the proposals can help in significantly decreasing the youth initiation and increasing the chances that the current smokers are quitting.
