[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.