Philip Morris International says it has created a less toxic cigarette-it claims this innovation can save lives and eliminate smoking in the United States.

The new technology, called IQOS, consists of a tube that gently heats tobacco rods instead of burning them. The company said that by using heat instead of flame, IQOS can eliminate 90% to 95% of the toxic compounds in cigarette smoke.

It is expected that the US Food and Drug Administration will decide whether to allow IQOS to enter the US market within the next two months. This has triggered heated debates and concerns among health experts about whether IQOS will help or harm the country’s public health.

One of their most pressing concerns is whether the new device will reduce the number of tobacco-related deaths, or whether it simply replaces one harmful product with another.

Adding to this suspicion is that many leading health organizations and experts in the United States still have deep doubts about Philip Morris.

They pointed out that this company made Marlboro-the world's best-selling cigarette-and misled the public about the dangers of smoking for many years.

"They are clever liars. This is not an exaggeration-it is a fact that has been proved by decades of evidence," said Matthew L. Miles, the long-term chairman of the Tobacco Free Kids Movement. "So the question we are all asking ourselves is: What is their final game plan for this matter?"

So far, only one independent study has examined the risks of IQOS and found that the device produced several toxic compounds at levels higher than Philip Morris claimed. The company’s response to this research was so strong that independent researchers are now silent, refusing to talk publicly about their work.

Health officials warned that even if Philip Morris' health statement is true, IQOS may be a Trojan horse. The smoking rate in the United States has dropped to an all-time low. Some health advocates worry that Philip Morris — who spent $3 billion to develop IQOS — hopes to use his new machine to stop this progress. If IQOS attracts new smokers, it may attract a new generation of nicotine.

"This skepticism is not surprising to us," said Moira Gilchrist, one of Philip Morris' chief scientists. "You don't have to believe or believe us. You don't have to believe our words. But what we want to ask is that people have an open mind. Look at the science we are doing on this basis and make decisions based on it."

But even the harshest skeptics admit that Philip Morris may be right and that IQOS can save lives.

"To be honest, we have encountered a big unknown here," said Myers, who has been fighting to keep children away from tobacco products for three years. "One thing is certain: the stakes here are huge."

On a recent sunny day, Gilchrist was standing outside Philip Morris’ Washington office—only two blocks from the White House—clicking to open a sleek, sleek battery pack.

With two fingers, she drew out an electronic cigar that looked like a hollow-the latest IQOS prototype.

She explained that to use it, you need to insert a modified short cigarette (called HeatStick) into its hollow end. The heating blade inside IQOS pierces the HeatStick and gently heats the tobacco inside.

Gilchrist held up IQOS for a long time. When she exhaled, the air was filled with a faint musty smell.

"Because there is no burning involved, there is no smoke," she said.

Unlike e-cigarettes that use liquid solutions to deliver nicotine, IQOS deliberately uses tobacco. Studies have shown that many smokers find it difficult to quit smoking even after trying e-cigarettes. Philip Morris scientist believes that to get smokers to quit, you need to provide something with the same buzz and taste as tobacco.

"You have to give them that satisfying experience," Gilchrist said. "You have to deliver nicotine at roughly the same rate and amount."

Now the first thing to welcome customers on Philip Morris’s homepage is this question: “How long will this world-leading cigarette company operate in the cigarette industry?”

Philip Morris CEO André Calantzopoulos predicts that smoke-free products such as IQOS will one day become so common that his company will stop selling all ordinary cigarettes. In a recent interview with the BBC, he said: "I hope this time will come soon."

The company that produces the world's best-selling cigarettes has opened a new research center in Switzerland that costs 120 million U.S. dollars to focus entirely on smoke-free products. The gleaming glass enclosure, called the cube, is composed of three wings-called the earth, wind, and air. (It is worth noting that there is no part called Fire.) Among all the new products of Cube, IQOS is the most advanced. It is now sold in 25 countries.

But the most obvious sign of its potential is Japan.

Last spring, IQOS was listed nationwide in Japan, and in a short period of time since then, IQOS occupied 10% of the Japanese tobacco market-a feat that made investors salivate on its prospects in the United States.

Philip Morris said that 72% of users in Japan completely quit smoking and switch to IQOS. In a trial published in The Lancet, this was significantly higher than the 7% quit rate of people who tried e-cigarettes and the 6% quit rate of nicotine patch users.

Japan's demand has exceeded production capacity, so that Philip Morris cannot produce heating rods fast enough. It had to limit the number of IQOS devices sold in Japan. Last month, it began to transform two cigarette factories in Europe into HeatStick factories and announced plans to build new factories.

This year, the company plans to more than triple its manufacturing capacity from 15 billion heating rods to 50 billion. By the end of 2018, it is planned to produce 100 billion pieces.

Two months ago, three Swiss researchers published the only independent study to date on the health risks of IQOS.

However, when contacted by a Washington Post reporter, the researchers refused to talk. A spokeswoman from the University of Lausanne (where one of them worked) explained in an email that after their research was published, the bosses of all three received a shocking letter from Philip Morris.

This letter was personally written to the heads of the University of Berne, the University Hospital of Lausanne and the University of Lausanne, accusing their employees of wrong methodology.

Francine Zambano, spokesperson for the University of Lausanne, pointed out that such a letter is almost unheard of in the scientific community. Usually, if someone disagrees with a study, they will contact the journal where the study appears or question their findings by publishing their own evidence.

When learning about Philip Morris’ unusual letter to the researcher’s boss, Mitchell Katz, the associate editor of the Journal of Internal Medicine of the American Medical Association, who published the study, said: “It must have a frightening taste. I am here. I’ve been an associate editor for eight years, and I’ve never seen this before."

This Swiss study compared the harmful compounds in the air produced by IQOS and ordinary cigarettes. The study found that although IQOS produced many toxic chemicals at a lower rate, some were much higher than Philip Morris claimed. It also found that IQOS produced 295% more harmful compounds than traditional cigarettes.

In their research, the scientists accused Philip Morris of “dancing around the definition of smoke” and believed that “there can be smoke without fire.”

Philip Morris published an academic rebuttal on the Internet, questioning the methods and interpretations of Swiss research. Company officials will not discuss their letter to the Swiss boss in detail, but defend their actions.

Spokesperson Corey Henry said: "When such a study has aroused so much media interest, smokers who have converted to IQOS and received help may be misled."

This is not the first time that tobacco companies have hyped up the advent of healthier cigarettes.

In the 1950s, they sold filter cigarettes that were safer, but this proved to be an exaggeration. In the 1970s, they introduced "light" and "low tar" cigarettes, and it took several decades for health experts to prove that they were not safe at all. Internal documents show that tobacco manufacturers deliberately designed light-flavored cigarettes to fool the government's smoke testing machine.

In the office of the Tobacco Free Children Movement, Miles put a museum on his bookshelf, showing all the ways tobacco companies have tried to deceive the public over the years. There are strawberry shortcake flavored products for children and tobacco embedded in dissolvable mint sticks.

Myers worried that IQOS-its stylish, sexy design-might be used to attract young consumers.

Brian King, deputy director of the Office of Smoking and Health of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is worried that IQOS will make tobacco acceptable again. "We have finally reached a place where normal smoking is not accepted and smoking in public places is not allowed. We are increasing the smoking rate. All of this can be easily reversed."

Stanton Grants, a tobacco researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, said that even though IQOS reduces carcinogens, it can still cause serious heart problems due to nicotine and ultrafine particles. "It may not be as bad as a cigarette, but it's like saying that a building that jumps out of 10 floors is not as bad as a building that jumps out of 50 floors."

However, some health researchers support Philip Morris' efforts.

"If you have a company that is willing to switch to less harmful products, should we obstruct it?" said Jonathan Folz, a smoking cessation expert at Pennsylvania State University.

Ultimately, the FDA will make a final decision on the scientific and health issues of IQOS.

Last month, when the FDA commissioner emphasized the need for innovation and cigarette alternatives in a speech, Philip Morris's IQOS case was boosted.

The agency is expected to decide within the next two months whether IQOS can be sold here, but will not make a ruling on its health statement until early next year.

If the FDA approves these health claims, IQOS will become the first tobacco product with the US government's imprint as a less harmful substitute for cigarettes-this is a marketing coup by Philip Morris. Competitors are already racing to catch up with other countries and launch their own prototypes.

Philip Morris' FDA application contains more than 2 million pages of scientific data. Health organizations—such as the American Lung Association and the American Cancer Society—have just begun screening them to make recommendations to the FDA.

But even if health organizations don’t believe in Philip Morris’s ethical or scientific claims about IQOS, there are compelling business reasons to believe that it really wants to save the lives of smokers, said industry analyst Michael Lafrey.

"If you can find a way to make your consumers live longer," he said, "you will make more money from them. This is a better business model."

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