How Big Tobacco flooded the FDA with public comments to kill a menthol cigarette ban — SkimNews
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- The tobacco industry flooded the FDA with 175,000 public comments over three months in 2022, with 97% being form letters opposing the proposed menthol cigarette ban, according to a Rutgers study published last month in JAMA Network Open.
- Nearly half of the form letters mirrored language from public relations campaigns by Altria (maker of Marlboro Menthol) and Reynolds American (maker of Newport), the two largest menthol brands in the U.S.
- The FDA missed its August 2023 deadline, set a new March 2024 deadline, and the Biden administration indefinitely postponed the ban in April 2024, citing 'historic' public feedback that the Rutgers researchers concluded was almost entirely form letters.
- The menthol ban was officially scrapped after President Trump took office, with opponents including civil rights and law enforcement groups that had received money from the tobacco industry and warned of illicit sales and biased policing — outcomes researchers say did not materialize after Canada or the EU enacted similar bans.
- Menthol cigarettes disproportionately harm Black Americans: about 80% of Black smokers use menthols, and menthols were responsible for 157,000 smoking-related deaths among Black Americans between 1980 and 2018, per University of Michigan research.
- Researchers estimated a menthol ban could avert 650,000 early deaths over four decades; former FDA Center for Tobacco Products official Eric Lindblom called the agency's 'we need more time' justification 'absolute nonsense,' noting regulators can issue a single response to millions of identical comments.
Why it matters: The menthol ban's collapse after a 97% form-letter campaign gives the tobacco industry a playbook: when political will exists for a life-saving rule — one that could have averted 650,000 deaths — industry can manufacture the appearance of massive public opposition to run out the regulatory clock. Black Americans, who make up 80% of menthol smokers, bear the ongoing health cost.
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