--- title: Vote Shows FDA Panel Largely Disagrees With Snus Safety Claims description: FDA panel votes against label application for snus, made by Swedish Match canonical: https://time.com/3817902/fda-snus-smokeless-tobacco/ author: Alexandra Sifferlin article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-04-10T21:36:40.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T06:19:11.528Z article:section: Health og:title: FDA Panel Votes Against Smokeless Tobacco Safety Claims og:description: FDA panel votes against label application for snus, made by Swedish Match og:url: https://time.com/3817902/fda-snus-smokeless-tobacco/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4214d5a19b7ef614/6987eaaee20a87915aa88d81/snus2.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2380 og:image:height: 1339 og:image:alt: Swedish Match Targets Wall Street Smokers With Snus Tobacco og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: FDA Panel Votes Against Smokeless Tobacco Safety Claims twitter:description: FDA panel votes against label application for snus, made by Swedish Match twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4214d5a19b7ef614/6987eaaee20a87915aa88d81/snus2.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # FDA Panel Votes Against Smokeless Tobacco Safety Claims > Sponsored content. 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Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Apr 10, 2015 9:36 PM UTC  Tins of Swedish Match AB General snus smokeless tobacco are arranged for a photograph at Cigar Inn tobacco store in New York, U.S., on Monday, March 15, 2010\. Swedish Match AB plans to double U.S. distribution of snus smokeless tobacco to about 1,200 stores and increase marketing to target Wall Street workers and other smokers forced to leave the office to light up, the company's U.S. sales president said. Photographer: Ramin Talaie/Bloomberg via Getty Images Tins of Swedish Match AB General snus smokeless tobacco are arranged for a photograph at Cigar Inn tobacco store in New York, U.S., on Monday, March 15, 2010\. Swedish Match AB plans to double U.S. distribution of snus smokeless tobacco to about 1,200 stores and increase marketing to target Wall Street workers and other smokers forced to leave the office to light up, the company's U.S. sales president said. Photographer: Ramin Talaie/Bloomberg via Getty Images Getty Images by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Apr 10, 2015 9:36 PM UTC An FDA advisory panel voted on Friday that it does not agree with the evidence and claims put forward by smokeless tobacco manufacturer Swedish Match regarding its application to change warning labels on its tobacco product, called snus. Snus, pronounced snoose, is a cloth baggie with moist tobacco powder which users stick under their upper lip for a nicotine buzz. [As TIME reported on Thursday](http://time.com/3815234/snus-fda/), Swedish Match wants to remove the required warnings that say snus causes mouth cancer, gum disease and tooth loss, arguing that there isn’t sufficient scientific evidence to support them. The company also wants to change the warning to read: “No tobacco product is safe, but this product presents substantially lower risks to health than cigarettes.” On Thursday and Friday an advisory committee to the FDA met about the company’s application and voted on a series of questions related to the application. The FDA will use the committee vote as a recommendation that it may or may not adopt. On Friday, the committee largely voted against many of Swedish Match’s claims, with some exceptions. On certain claims, the panel’s vote was clear cut. The committee unanimously voted that there was not evidence to suggest that snus products _do not_ pose risks to gum disease or tooth loss. The committee was, however, split on the question of whether snus products do not pose risks for oral cancer. Three members voted yes, three members voted no, and two abstained from the vote. The committee was split on the question of whether there’s evidence to support the statement that the health risks for people who exclusively use snus products are “substantially lower” than the health risks from smoking cigarettes. Four members voted yes and four voted no. The vote suggests the committee is still unconvinced that solely using the smokeless tobacco product is indeed safer than using cigarettes. A large part of Swedish Match’s argument is that snus has contributed to what’s called the “Swedish experience.” Sweden has similar tobacco consumption rates as other European countries but has the lowest smoking-related mortality rate. Many say that’s because Swedish men tend to choose snus over cigarettes (the product is less popular among women). Members of the public health community watching the vote [have been largely divided on whether harm reduction has a place in tobacco control](http://time.com/3815234/snus-fda/?xid=tcoshare) and whether pushing people toward products with lower levels of nicotine is good for public health. The committee also voted that the proposed warning statement from Swedish Match does not adequately communicate the potential health risks from using snus. “I am very happy with the vote,” says Shyam Biswal, a professor in the department of Environmental Health Sciences at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “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.” Biswal adds that he thought the evidence presented by Swedish Match was weak, including studies with small sample sizes. Biswal was not involved in the vote, but has studied modified risk tobacco products. Swedish Match did not respond to requests for comment by time of publication. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3817902/fda-snus-smokeless-tobacco/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3817902/fda-snus-smokeless-tobacco/"},"headline":"FDA Panel Votes Against Smokeless Tobacco Safety Claims","datePublished":"2015-04-10T21:36:40.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T06:19:11.528Z","description":"The panel's vote was split on some important points","url":"https://time.com/3817902/fda-snus-smokeless-tobacco/","keywords":["Addiction","Cigarettes","tobacco","FDA"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4214d5a19b7ef614/6987eaaee20a87915aa88d81/snus2.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alexandra Sifferlin","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4214d5a19b7ef614/6987eaaee20a87915aa88d81/snus2.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Swedish Match Targets Wall Street Smokers With Snus Tobacco","caption":"Swedish Match Targets Wall Street Smokers With Snus Tobacco","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/addiction/","name":"Addiction"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3817902/fda-snus-smokeless-tobacco/","name":"FDA Panel Votes Against Smokeless Tobacco Safety Claims"}}]}] ```