Responding to the decision, public health expert Clive Bates wrote on Twitter, The idea that dramatically reduced exposure to toxins does not translate to reduced risk to health requires a novel and implausible theory of the human body. One TPSAC member, no doubt inadvertently, summed up committees attitude when he said: I think this stuff is just too complicated for the average Joe. Though TPSACs decision is not binding on FDA, it is symptomatic of how difficult it is for companies to convince regulators to allow them to tell consumers the most important facts about their reduced risk products, chiefly that they are safer than cigarettes
Over the past three decades, CVS and its rivals have swallowed up thousands of locally owned, independent, community pharmacies, most of which had long ago stopped selling cigarettes or had never sold them to begin with because tobacco products are antithetical to the healthcare role of the pharmacist
There is a subjective component because they are not based on numbers and they can turn out to be a mess. Thats why they added the word characterizing, Davoli added
Have one sitting on your desk at home or keep it in your bag when youre out of the house