A new study finds that American doctors are withholding potentially life-saving information from patients who smoke, in part because of a lack of guidance from the Food and Drug Administration.
Smoking rates among U.S. adults have plummeted over the past half-century — from 42 percent in 1965 to about 12 percent today, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention .
However, cigarettes are still linked to 480,000 deaths each year. Treating cigarette-related illnesses costs Americans more than $240 billion in annual health care spending.
That is why many public health professionals have made ending cigarette smoking a top priority: getting smokers to put down cigarettes and pick up other nicotine products — vapes, pouches, heat-not-burn technology like IQOS, and so o