Swedish Match’s proposal to ease warning labels related to snus tobacco packaging has not been accepted by a panel of US FDA advisors.
Snus is a moist tobacco powder put under the upper lip.
Swedish Match wants the FDA to allow it to tone down the warnings on its packs. It claimed that there was not enough scientific evidence to support the belief that the product is as harmful as cigarattes.
Swedish Match proposes to change the warning to 'No tobacco product is safe, but this product presents substantially lower risks to health than cigarettes'.
The FDA committee observed that the proposed warning does not completely convey the risk involved in the consumption of snus.
The company had argued in the past that snus is a safer alternative to cigarettes, catapulting it to become Sweden's predominant product, Time reported.
However, the FDA panel that met on Friday voted against many of the claims made by Swedish Match.
While the panel unanimously voted that there was not enough evidence to suggest that snus products do not pose risks to gum disease or tooth loss, its opinions were split on the question of whether they do not pose risks of oral cancer.
The panel saw three members voting in favour and three voting against oral cancer, whereas two abstained from the vote.
Votes were also divided equally on whether snus was 'substantially' less harmful than cigarattes. Four members voted yes and four voted no.
Time quoted Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health department of environmental health sciences professor Shyam Biswal as saying: "I am happy with the vote.
"My main concern is (snus attracting) new users who would otherwise not smoke. Saying snus is significantly less harmful (than cigarettes) is a very broad claim."
FDA is yet to take a final decision on Swedish Match's proposal. While it may consider the panel recommendations, they are not binding on the agency.
