Some Mattress Makers Want Old Test Snuffed As Government-Made Cigarettes Rolled Out

Mattress manufacturers are preparing for a Sept. 23 mandatory switch that will make them replace the highly ignitable Pall Mall cigarettes they have been using since 1972 to test the flammability of their products with newly rolled, government-produced cigarettes.

The government cigarette, known as SRM 1196, is the recent product of a $195,000 interagency agreement between the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Research and development began in 2008 in an effort to replicate the properties of the unfiltered, non-reduced ignition propensity (RIP) Pall Mall cigarette, which a 40–year-old regulation required ...