The world's largest multinational tobacco company, Philip Morris International, is facing allegations of deceiving consumers about the nicotine content in its Iqos heated tobacco product series.
The product is a supposed "better" alternative to cigarettes developed by the company. In its marketing, the Philippine National Tobacco Company claims that each cigarette contains 0.5 milligrams of nicotine. However, recent research shows that the actual nicotine content of the product is more than eight times higher.
Currently, there is no international standard for testing the content of heated tobacco products, leaving a gray area in determining how to obtain and disclose this information to consumers.
Heated tobacco products are becoming increasingly popular, accounting for over 2.5% of all tobacco sales in the European Union. These devices heat disposable tobacco sticks without combustion, unlike vaping or e-cigarettes, which typically contain nicotine but not tobacco. Last year, PMI estimated that its heated tobacco line has approximately 20 million users.
The test was conducted by Unisanté, the Swiss University Center for General Medicine and Public Health, and analyzed by Force Technology in Denmark. The results showed that each disposable cigarette contains 4.1 milligrams of nicotine. Nicotine, like heroin and cocaine, is one of the most addictive drugs in the world and the reason why people become addicted to tobacco, which causes over 8 million deaths annually.
The 0.5 milligrams figure from PMI appears to come from a revised version of their own international standard organization (ISO) testing regime. The ISO system measures the amount of nicotine emitted in cigarette smoke that you inhale, which is often significantly lower than the total amount of nicotine in the cigarette.
However, even though the 0.5 milligrams referred to the emissions from the cigarette filter, the agency's testing revealed that each cigarette actually emits more than twice that amount, at 1.2 milligrams. When contacted by the agency, PMI stated that they had discovered a similar number in their own “intense smoking regime” testing, but there is no evidence that they had ever used this number in any public communications.
PMI has accused the agency of conflating nicotine emissions with the amount of nicotine present in tobacco products. In addition, it has stated that its own testing has found that each cigarette contains up to 4.6mg of total nicotine, making these products "as addictive as cigarettes.
The company also stated that the nicotine content in heated tobacco sticks and cigarettes is "low in correlation to consumers," and pointed out the differences between nicotine content, emissions, and exposure (the amount absorbed by the user).
However, without clear universal regulations on which numbers to use and how to describe them, consumers will continue to be misled.
Utilizing gray areas. (Note: This phrase appears to be incomplete and lacks context.)
For years, testing and quantifying the nicotine content of their products has been a critical area of interest for large tobacco companies seeking to exploit regulatory loopholes for their own profit.
The ISO testing method, favored by the European Union and utilized by PMI, has received harsh criticism from scientists for underestimating actual smoking behaviors. Researchers suggest that the method is "not sufficient for product regulation or consumer information." The testing conducted by the agency utilized Canada's intensive health department system, which is an alternative testing method verified and recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO).
Almost 20 years ago, the World Health Organization cautioned that calculating the amounts of nicotine in cigarettes using the ISO method was misleading. Its Tobacco Control Framework Convention states that "the yields of tar, nicotine and other smoke constituents generated from smoking machines do not provide an effective estimate of human exposure.
Therefore, according to guidelines from the World Health Organization, numbers related to emissions, including nicotine and tar, should not be displayed on packaging. EU law also prohibits the promotion of any information regarding nicotine content on tobacco product labels. While PMI may not be breaking any laws regarding packaging, they continue to promote the misleading 0.5mg nicotine figure for their Iqos product worldwide, including on the company's Swiss website and only recently removing it from their UK website.
The bureau also conducted real-time web chats with the company on its websites in South Africa, Malaysia, and European countries, inquiring about the nicotine content of their disposable cigarette buds.
When responding, employees from 11 countries cited the number 0.5 milligrams, but only two of those countries clarified that it referred to nicotine levels in the emissions, while the other nine wrongly claimed or implied it referred to the amount of nicotine in the actual tobacco stick. At one point, an employee on PMI Sweden's website claimed that the nicotine content in the heated tobacco sticks, marketed as "Heets," was 24 times higher than traditional cigarettes.
Stefania Muccifora, an Iqos user from Italy, says that she searched for the nicotine content of Heets tobacco sticks on Google and found that the PMI website indicated that they only contain 0.5 milligrams per stick. She was surprised and said, "Wow, that's 20 times less than what I'm used to smoking." As a result, she started using Iqos. Staff at an Iqos store in Rome reportedly provided similar information, stating that each Heets stick contains 0.5 milligrams of nicotine. When asked if Heets sticks contain less nicotine than traditional cigarettes, they replied, "Yes, much less. For example, Marlboro Red contains 14 milligrams.
Enrico Davoli, a tobacco expert from the Mario Negri Pharmacological Research Institute in Milan, has stated that the agency's findings are in line with international research reviewed by the independent tobacco product regulation research group of the World Health Organization, of which he is a part. He said that PMI's claim that its tobacco sticks contain 0.5mg of nicotine is "not an accurate statement".
PMI informed the agency that regulations in certain countries require the use of the ISO system to report nicotine emissions, "therefore, in such cases, we report 0.5 milligrams.
The company initially told the station that it would not respond to an organization sponsored by a "special interest group" that writes sponsored content.
Setting standards.
Since the introduction of PMI's iQOS series eight years ago, heated tobacco has been a rapidly growing market, but the International Organization for Standardization has not yet released international standard tests for analyzing chemicals in heated tobacco products.
The committee responsible for providing standardized methods for tobacco products is composed of experts, scholars, and industry professionals from 31 countries. It is chaired by Wolf-Dieter Heller, a former tobacco industry lobbyist.
A committee member informed the chair that the names of the remaining members were confidential, but most of them were from the tobacco industry. He stated, "I know them all." When the bureau requested ISO to provide the committee member list, they were told that due to data protection and "avoiding third-party influences on members," names could not be disclosed.
According to a member, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) holds a conference annually in various cities around the world. "Industry representatives can pay to attend the conference, but public research institutions are not able to do so.
They added that the workload is significant, and each vote that committee members must make requires extensive reading. They said this is difficult to balance with their daily academic work, which strongly supports an overly bureaucratic process that favors the tobacco industry.
Committee manager Juliane Jung stated, "The development process for many standards, especially new ones, requires time. Working groups and appropriate advisory committees will examine each topic and assess the necessity of standardization.
How easy is it to get addicted to heated tobacco?
As heating tobacco is a relatively new product, its long-term health effects are largely unknown. PMI has requested that the Italian Ministry of Health review its research on Iqos so that the company can legally claim that these products are less harmful than traditional cigarettes.
The US Food and Drug Administration had found evidence suggesting that the harmful chemicals produced by the use of Iqos were fewer than those produced by smoking. However, the Italian National Institute of Health (ISS), which represented the health department during the review, concluded that there were 80 substances present only in Iqos emissions or at concentrations far higher than in cigarettes. Four of these substances were classified as carcinogens, while eight others could potentially cause DNA damage leading to cancer or birth defects.
The report by the ISS highlighted that PMI failed to provide specific research on the level of addiction induced by Iqos, as required by Italian law for the launch of new tobacco products to the market.
Various pieces of evidence, including tests conducted by PMI itself, suggest that Iqos may be just as addictive as traditional cigarettes. Our findings indicate that although a single Iqos stick has less nicotine content than a cigarette, it emits chemical substances at twice the efficiency of a cigarette during the inhalation process. As a result, an individual's intake of nicotine is essentially the same.
In a statement provided to the agency, PMI acknowledges that "adult smokers who switch to IQOS get the same amount of nicotine as they would from cigarettes.
According to the anti-smoking center at Milan's National Cancer Institute, the high concentration of nicotine in Iqos suggests it may lead to high levels of addiction. Roberto Boffi, the center's director, stated that some patients "seem to smoke more with Iqos than with traditional cigarettes".
As PMI's own information has been proven to be misleading and inconsistent, Iqos users are unaware of how addicted they are to the product.
An Italian woman who was once a Marlboro Red smoker told officials, "I started using Iqos because I thought I would smoke less and eventually quit smoking completely." "But now that I have Iqos, I find myself smoking more.
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