sample="quota" bates="88026134" isource="atc" decade="1970" class="ui" date="19940414" EXCERPTS CONCERNING INGREDIENTS ADDED TO TOBACCO; APRIL 14, 1994 HEARING OF THE HOUSE SUBCOMMITTEE ON HEALTH AND THE ENVIRONMENT (UNOFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT) REP. BLILEY: Mr. Campbell, the federal government is well aware of the ingredients you add to the tobacco in your cigarettes. Haven't you been providing HHS with an annual ingredients list for a number of years? MR. CAMPBELL: Yes, we started that back over, almost 15 years ago. REP. BLILEY: Has HHS, at any time during this time period, issued a report to Congress as it is authorized to do, citing any health risk associated with such ingredients? MR. CAMPBELL: No, they have not, sir. REP. BLILEY: Has HHS ever approached the industry with the results of any study suggesting that any of the ingredients in cigarettes presented any health risks to smokers? MR. CAMPBELL: Absolutely no indications of health risks with our ingredients, sir. REP. BLILEY: Have you offered your cooperation to HHS in its review of ingredients? MR. CAMPBELL: Repeatedly we've offered our willingness to work with them. REP. BLILEY: What was their response? MR. CAMPBELL: There has been no response up to this time, sir. REP. BLILEY: If HHS had approached the industry with some of the allegations that had been bannered about recently in the press, what would have been your response? MR. CAMPBELL: Our response would have been that all of these are generally approved, but that we would be happy to look into these ingredients in any way that they wish to discuss them. REP. BLILEY: It is your understanding that over 90 percent of the ingredients used by major cigarette companies and cigarettes manufactured in the United States are commonly used in food? They either have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration as food additives, or they are included on lists of substances generally recognized as safe, maintained by the FDA or the Flavor Extract Manufacturers Association? MR. CAMPBELL: That's absolutely correct. REP. BLILEY: Additionally, governmental bodies or affiliated organizations in other countries such as Great Britain, Germany, France, Belgium, Switzerland and the Council of Europe, have evaluated the ingredients used in cigarettes and have come up with accepted lists of ingredients? MR. CAMPBELL: That's correct, and that completes the U.S. Domestic Manufacturers list, I believe. REP. BLILEY: In short, all of the ingredients used by the major American cigarette manufacturers also can be found in one or more of these accepted lists? MR. CAMPBELL: That's correct sir. REP. BLILEY: Thank you, very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Wyden, you're the last one for questions. REP. WYDEN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me start this round on matters involving the ingredient situation. Mr. Taddeo, and I hope I'm not doing violent to the pronunciation of -- MR. TADDEO: Taddeo. REP. WYDEN: Taddeo -- excuse me. I noted yesterday that the ingredients from the smokeless tobacco industry were not included in the industry disclosure yesterday. Is your organization prepared to make your ingredient list public as well on the additives? MR. TADDEO: Mr. Wyden, you have to appreciate that that was a surprise to us yesterday. I haven't had a chance to speak to the other members of the industry in the smokeless tobacco industry. I can't speak for them, but I know we will be meeting shortly on that subject. REP. WYDEN: Do you personally favor making smokeless tobacco additives public? MR. TADDEO: The ingredient list? REP. WYDEN: Yes. MR. TADDEO: I personally don't have a problem with it. REP. WYDEN: Okay. Gentlemen, maybe this question is directed to you, Mr. Johnston, if I could. Does the list of additives that you supplied the Secretary of Health and Human Services include all additives to paper, filters, and to non-tobacco smokable materials in the tobacco rods of cigarettes? MR. JOHNSTON: Please repeat the question. I didn't quite hear it. REP. WYDEN: What we want to know is whether the list that you give the government includes all the additives to paper, filters, and non-tobacco smokable materials that are in the tobacco rods of your cigarettes. MR. JOHNSTON: I do not believe that it covers those. It may cover some, it may not. I will clarify that for the record. REP. WYDEN: That will be fine. Would you supply the committee with lists of these additives if those aren't given over to the government? MR. JOHNSTON: I see no reason why not. I would prefer that we do that on an industry basis so we're not revealing brand-specific data. REP. WYDEN: Let me ask you a couple of other quick questions with respect to the ingredients. Now, a preliminary analysis of your most recent submissions reveal 13 ingredients that don't appear on the Food and Drug administration's current list of everything added to food in the United States. Mr. Chairman, at this time I would ask unanimous consent that a report be prepared at the subcommittee's request by the Centers for Disease Control on the toxicity of these ingredients to be placed into the record. REP. WAXMAN: Without objection that will be the order. MR. : I could be helpful on that issue too, Mr. Congressman. REP. WYDEN: All right. Mr. Johnson, one of these ingredients is nicotine sulfate. The CDC notes that this is a very toxic compound, and it's the main precursor of a suspected carcinogenic, nytrophemene (sp). Have any of you -- your or any of the others -- used nicotine sulfate as an ingredient to manufacture cigarette products? MR. JOHNSTON: That issue has been addressed in every oral statement I heard, every written statement, and probably a dozen questions. I will repeat it again for the record. REP. WYDEN: Let's get it on the record. MR. JOHNSTON: We are required by the BATF to use that as the only thing we can use as a denaturing agent in alcohol. Alcohol is what carries flavors and deposits them on the tobacco. Its presence is not detectable in the final product. That is how little of it is used. It is vaporized -- REP. WYDEN: Who says that? Who says that it is not detectable? MR. JOHNSTON: As you know, we have had six eminent independent toxicologists review these ingredients. I would like to comment on this list of 13 ingredients. It is erroneous. Please let me say for the record that five of the items on that list are not used at all by the six major U.S. manufacturers. Of the remaining ingredients, one is a processing agent that is not detectable in the finished product; three are in fact approved for use in food; others occur naturally in various food products, and are present in cigarette at trace levels, meaning parts per million. All those are approved - REP. WYDEN: Well, let's be clear. MR. JOHNSTON: Yes. REP. WYDEN: What I have from the Centers for Disease Control was dated March 24th of this year. They said it was 13 based on the 1992 list, which is the last list given to the government. So I think we want to be clear that that's what the Centers for Disease Control said. But, more important, I think it needs to be noted, Mr. Johnston, that over the last 24 hours the tobacco industry has declared once again that all is well, ingredients are safe, everybody doesn't have to worry -- set it out of your mind. But, let me read you what the Centers for Disease Control said on March 24. They said, and I quote, "Without information about the specific dose, combination of ingredients, and how and when ingredients are added during the manufacturing process, we are unable to determine health risks that might result from any of the ingredients." Now, you all may have in fact been able in the last 24 hours to do a real sugar-coating job on this ingredient issue, and tried to convince people, including some in the press, that all is safe. But the official declaration of the government, the Centers for Disease Control, in a letter March 24th, 1994, does not agree with that particular assertion. And until the government gets the specific quantity of the chemical involved it is very clear that the government cannot ascertain safety. I got my list yesterday. I was not given any specific dosage information, not given any dosage information on brands. I hope that that information will be forthcoming. You have again given us in your testimony a statement that there is nothing to worry about, we need not be concerned. I just hope we can get specific dosage information so that independent scientists can make that declaration. I would be pleased if that was the case. But I will tell you that as one member of Congress, I am not prepared to say just because the toxicologists that you have hired that does it. The Centers for Disease Control says that that is not acceptable to them on the safety issue. MR. JOHNSTON: Did the CDC also tell you that when they have asked us for additional information we have provided it? The United States government has had this information for 14 years. REP. WYDEN: Well -- MR. JOHNSTON: And you're accusing of hiding something?! That's ridiculous. REP. WYDEN: We don't -- we don't question for a second that all through the eighties public health officials made little or no use of that list. We documented the number of requests -- there were virtually none. But we have also been told that Dr. Roper, the previous head of the CDC, said that he was not able under law to get the quantity information. And since he couldn't get quantity information, he felt research was really quite meaningless. You call can resolve this issue, it seems to me, by giving to federal health officials quantity information about the ingredients. I hope that could be done. I think that's what is essential to really deal with this issue. 151