US: More pressure on tobacco companies

The Senate Commerce Committee has presented a tobacco bill that threatens drastically to curtail all advertising and marketing. The bill has two aspects. If the tobacco companies want limits to their future financial liabilities on health grounds, then they must accept previously proposed Food and Drug Administration (FDA) curbs, plus the additional ones proposed by the Senate Commerce Committee, including such items as no longer using any depictions of animals in advertising and ceasing the use of colour advertising on the back of magazines. Such rules would also apply to tobacco packaging. If they reject that proposal, then the bill authorises the FDA to regulate tobacco advertising anyway.