Taylor Millard writes about politics and public policy. He wrote this for InsideSources.com.

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 on. Data