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US News on Secret Tobacco Papers Industry in Tobacco Shopping Supplies Directory

    

Other studies looked for health risks everywhere because, as a 1985 paper written for the Tobacco Institute, the industrys lobbying arm, put it, if everything causes cancer, all care, yet none care. The paper goes on to advise the industry to build a body of law in states where tobacco is grown and judges are elected and to consider suing adversaries: No tential defendant should be considered sacrosanct, the paper states, including the erican Cancer Society, heart and lung groups, and their local organizations. Another document details the industrys search for evidence of other causes of cancer, including stress or genetics or even the role of the decrease in tuberculosis in the rise of lung cancer The hunt for other causes of disease took a memorable turn at one point when an industry researcher, noting claims that cigarettes are harmful because they contain carbon monoxide, cited a study of the exhaust fumes of the icerinkcleaning Zamboni and its effect on kids. The memo says that children may be at higher risk than adults of being hurt by exposure to carbon monoxide since they have higher metabolism . . . and they are nearer the floor. In other words, the menacing nontobacco sources of carbon monoxide, like Zambonis, are likely to be the cause of health problems, not exposure to cigarettes. There are also revelations that Big Tobacco considered ways to improve the product with new additives. A 1977 document cited by the Wall Street Journal reportedly shows that scientists at one company debated adding to cigarettes a narcotic called etorphine, which it said was 10,000 times as effective an analgesic as morphine. PR hell. In their sum, the papers portray an industry caught up in a uniquely hostile environment, determined to control the public debate even though, as one tobacco consultant understates in a memo, this business defies traditional publicrelations fixings. One 1983 memo summarizing the publicrelations initiatives of the Tobacco Institute is particularly interesting in light of the overwhelming public support for stopping tobacco use by teenagers. Brown & Williamson, the author flatly states, will not support a youth smoking program which discourages young people from smoking Several memos show consultants advising the cigarette companies to employ subtle tools to burnish their image. It is essential that the industry lead in research efforts as a means of shaping the issue in the public arena, says a 1982 industry document. Another says that the Center for Tobacco Research, established by cigarette makers as an independent research arm, has enabled the industry to continue its relationship with scientists whose conclusions contradict charges against cigarette smoking.

 

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