Tobacco: choking safety improvements

Chris Burford cburford at gn.apc.org
Wed Mar 3 14:03:23 PST 1999



>From New Scientist of 6th March

[tobacco capital cannot even innovate]

CIGARETTE manufacturers abandoned dozens

of technologies that could have reduced the death toll

from their products, according to a new report from

two leading British anti-smoking groups. It claims that

tobacco barons feared that marketing a "safer"

cigarette would amount to an admission that smoking

is dangerous.

The report, from Action on Smoking and Health

(ASH) and the Imperial Cancer Research Fund,

details 58 patented methods for cutting levels of toxic

chemicals in cigarette smoke. None has yet seen the

light of day.

These include a catalytic method to remove carbon

monoxide and nitric oxide from smoke (US 4182348),

registered by British American Tobacco (BAT) in

1980. Philip Morris filed a similar patent (US

4301817) in 1981, which also describes a process to

cut levels of hydrogen cyanide.

The cost of implementing these technologies

may have been one of the reasons they were abandoned.

But ASH believes concerns about the legal difficulties

in admitting the dangers posed by existing products

were far more significant.

"Marketing a cigarette on the basis it had less of a

tasteless gas like carbon monoxide would effectively

mean admitting the product was bad for you," says

Clive Bates, director of ASH. "Then you would move

into the area of product liability with the smoker who

has had heart disease made worse by inhaling carbon

monoxide."

Although cigarette manufacturers have promoted

lower-tar brands for decades, Bates says that the

industry has been careful not to claim these are safer.

Instead, they have been marketed as tasting milder.

Bates also points to a confidential memo written in

1986 by Patrick Sheehy, then chief executive of

BAT, uncovered last year during litigation in the US.

It states: "In attempting to develop a 'safe' cigarette

you are, by implication, in danger of being interpreted

as accepting that the current product is unsafe and

this is not a position I think we should take."

Chris Proctor, head of science and regulatory affairs

at BAT's London headquarters, disputes Bates's

claims. He says that many of the technologies were

not developed because they might in theory increase

levels of other toxic chemicals. But Proctor could not

confirm whether BAT had conducted tests to exclude

this possibility.

It is unclear to what extent the shelved patents could

have cut premature deaths. But Bates says: "If you

could make cigarettes 10 per cent less dangerous,

that's 12 000 lives saved each year in the UK alone."

Among the most dangerous substances in cigarette

smoke are carcinogens called nitrosamines. The new

report lists six patented processes for reducing or

eliminating these chemicals from cigarette smoke. The

tobacco giants have never implemented any of them,

but a small company called Star Scientific of

Petersburg, Virginia, hopes to introduce

nitrosamine-free cigarettes next year. In 1998, the

company patented a method (US 5803081) of

microwaving tobacco to kill the bacteria that create

the right chemical environment for the production of

nitrosamines.

"If their process is effective, it should be applied to

cigarette manufacturing everywhere," says John

Slade, a specialist in nicotine addiction at the

University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey

in Newark. "But it might require legislation."

The report will be seized upon by sick smokers who

are trying to sue tobacco firms for damages. They

have been experiencing mixed fortunes. Last week in

Britain, for example, 46 smokers abandoned their

action against Gallaher and Imperial Tobacco after a

judge ruled they had waited too long after contracting

lung cancer before launching their suit.

But Richard Daynard, a law professor at Northeastern

University in Boston and founder of the Tobacco

Products Liability Project advocacy group, believes

the report could precipitate further lawsuits: "The

companies knew how to make changes that would

mean many fewer deaths. But they continued to

make cigarettes as they are. This is a criminal level of

negligence."

Proctor rejects this charge: "I firmly believe that BAT

has been very responsible." Philip Morris would not

comment on the report.



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