Conclusion

The tobacco industry's public relations efforts during the "safe" cigarette era consisted largely of an attempt to confuse the public about the scientific evidence on the dangers of smoking. Whether those efforts involved in-house handbooks, books and magazine articles written on behalf of the industry, or advertising campaigns, the thrust of the material was the same: create doubt in the public mind about what the scientific evidence really says and then attack the notion that the government should meddle in the tobacco industry's business without having definitive proof of harmful effects of smoking. To this end, the industry enlisted the support of powerful friends in the political world as well as in the media, and sometimes failed to disclose the fact that certain people expressing a viewpoint sympathetic to the industry had direct financial ties to the industry.