In an attempt to lower the number of people becoming addicted of cigarettes and also that of the people dying because smoking-related disease, the House of Representatives voted last Wednesday in favor of a bill that would give the US Food and Drug Administration the power to regulate cigarettes and other tobacco products and to treat tobacco manufacturers similar to drug manufacturers.

The bill, voted 326 to 102, would enable the FDA to require tobacco companies to disclose the content of cigarettes, to ban sales terms such as “light,” “mild” and “low tar,” to require cigarettes to carry larger and more specific warning labels, to ban candy- and fruit-flavored cigarettes and least but not last  to eliminate all marketing that seems aimed at children.

In addition, there is a possibility that the small warning labels on cigarette packages would be replaced by graphic images of the health problems caused by cigarettes such as lung tumors and mouth growths. Of course, there are also other conditions favored by smoking such as heart disease, asthma and child birth defects in case of women who smoke during pregnancy.

The bill is now on its way to the Senate where it has strong support. A similar bill was approved by the Senate in 2004 but it did not pass in the House of Representatives.

However, the White House is said to veto the legislation if approved by the Senate because “in seeking to limit the harm imposed by tobacco on the American public, the bill will unfortunately undermine one of the nation’s premier public health and regulatory institutions and potentially lead the public to mistakenly conclude some tobacco products are safe,” a statement issued by the White House read.

Other supporters of the bill include the nations’ largest cigarette maker, Phillip Morris USA, a unit of Altria Group Inc., the American Cancer Society, and the American Lung Association.

Both health organizations are all aware of the fact that such a bill would improve the health of Americans in the way smoking bans in public places have done already in many of the states adopting such measures. According to a study carried out in Scotland and published in the New England Journal of Medicine last week, public bans on smoking improve the overall health of people.

The study found that after a ban smoking in enclosed public place was introduced in Scotland in March 2006, there was a 17 percent reduction in hospital admissions for acute coronary syndrome. There was a 14 percent reduction in admissions among smokers, a 19 percent reduction among former smokers, and a 21 percent reduction among people who’d never smoked. Non-smokers saw a 20 percent reduction in their hospital admissions.

According to current estimates, smoking appears to be the biggest cause of preventable deaths in the US, killing more than 400,000 people each year. Also, secondhand smoking seems to be higher than previously believed, killing almost 40,000 people annually because of cancers, respiratory infections and asthma, conditions also diagnosed in the case of smokers.