The cover story for the August 31, 2009, issue of Chemical & Engineering News was entitled, “Chemicals Leach From Packaging: Food and drugs just can’t leave their wrappings behind.”  URL for article is: http://pubs.acs.org/cen/coverstory/87/8735cover.html .  The same agency that regulates packaging materials for foods and drugs, now is regulating tobacco products.  For many years, the major tobacco companies have had strict controls on materials used in their packaging and levels of residual solvents they will permit, companies with fewer resources may not have the skilled personnel and equipment to ensure that they are not having problems with packaging, not only in terms of regulatory compliance, but more importantly in terms of making sure packaging does not compromise the hedonic attributes of their products.  Please contact me if you need addiitonal information.

As some of you may know, I have been at the forefront in providing scientific critique of Jim Pankow’s attempts since 1997 to misrepresent the amount of free-base (unprotonated) nicotine (FBN) in mainstream cigarette smoke.  The lastest Pankow article appeared on March 13 in the Articles ASAP section of the web edition of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry (J. Agric. Food Chem., Article ASAP • DOI: 10.1021/jf803018x • Publication Date (Web): 13 March 2009).  Research was partially funded by attorneys from Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman and Robbins LLP (anti-tobacco folks), contained many nonrelevant citations, questionable data (deliveries determined under MDPH conditions less than those reported for FTC smoking), and the claim that filter cigarettes were smoked to 23 mm butt length.  While Pankow’s data are now showing FBN to be 0.03% or less of total mainstream nicotine, their validity is questionable.  Indeed, Pankow admits to having a problem explaining why his FBN numbers are so much lower than he had reported previously.

JHL