How Big Tobacco flooded the FDA with public comments to kill a menthol cigarette ban

A study published in JAMA and reported by STAT News finds that the FDA’s 2022 proposal to ban menthol cigarettes drew roughly 175,000 public comments, and that virtually all of them were form letters. Researchers at Rutgers examined the submissions and found most echoed talking points aligned with tobacco industry positions rather than reflecting spontaneous public sentiment.

The FDA’s rulemaking process solicits public comment as a formal step before finalizing regulations, and agencies are expected to weigh the substance of submissions rather than simply tally volume. The Rutgers researchers’ analysis suggests that the comment period on the menthol ban was shaped less by organic public input than by coordinated campaigns generating near-identical form submissions at scale.

The proposed ban, first announced in 2022, would have prohibited menthol as a cigarette flavoring nationwide, a move public health officials had linked to reducing smoking rates, particularly among Black smokers, who use menthol cigarettes at disproportionately high rates. The rule has not been finalized.

STAT News reports that the JAMA study examined the content and origin patterns of the comments to determine how many appeared to be independently authored versus templated. The findings raise questions about how regulatory agencies weigh public comment volume against authenticity when industries with financial stakes in a rule’s outcome can mobilize large-scale submission campaigns during the standard notice-and-comment period.