11 retailers scolded for tobacco marketing

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced Wednesday that it has issued 11 warning letters to online retailers for illegally marketing tobacco products with misleading or unsubstantiated claims that suggest cigarettes are not harmful.

The agency called on sellers to cease using words such as light, low, mild, less toxic or safer. Those descriptors, the agency said in an alert to the public Wednesday, falsely indicate reduced harm or risk from tobacco products.

"There is no known safe tobacco product," said Dr. Lawrence Deyton, director of the FDA's Center for Tobacco Products. "It is illegal for tobacco companies or retailers, including Internet sellers, to make unsubstantiated claims or statements that imply tobacco products reduce health risks."

He added the agency will pursue enforcement actions to protect the public health.

The agency's reprimand of the 11 retailers comes on the heels of three studies in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, posted online last week. Medical investigators at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo report continuing violations of federal law by cigarette manufacturers despite passage last year of the federal Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act.

Manufacturers, researchers found, have largely dropped descriptors such as light, low, mild and filtered and have instead tried to convey the same information through pack designs. Cigarette packs have been colored with gold or silver labels to convey subliminally the same information, researchers said.

For years, cigarette manufacturers created the illusion that filtered and so-called light/mild cigarettes were safer than unfiltered ones.