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Chapter 4 The Search for a "Safe" Cigarette
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Health Versus Public Relations, 1970–1982

St. Adele Research Conference, 1970

The group research conference for 1970 was held in November at St. Adele in Quebec {1170.01}. The group consensus about the potential for achieving a "safe" cigarette was significantly tempered in 1970 compared to conclusions the group had reached in 1967. According to the 1970 minutes, the 1967 meeting had concluded,

The smoking and health problem is amenable to a research solution. This is a significant change in thinking and is a direct result of research [emphasis added]. {1170.01, p. 1}

By 1970 the conference participants (nearly the same group of individuals) reached a different conclusion:

The smoking and health problem is at least partially amenable to a research solution [emphasis added]. {1170.01, p. 1}

Underlying both statements is the assumption that constituents of tobacco products have toxic effects. The statements represent an important shift between 1967 and 1970 in the degree to which BAT scientists believed there was a technical fix for the problem of smoking-induced cancer and other diseases.

Chelwood Research Conference, 1972

The minutes of the 1972 conference, held at Chelwood, England, include a specific statement of the "main objective" envisioned for R&D at the Southampton facility.


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The main Southampton objective was stated 'To design cigarettes which are preferred by smokers either generally or in significant special cases. The products are to conform to policy requirements with respect to composition and biological activity.' The main criticism was not with the objectives but that these might be too difficult to achieve. {1171.02, p. 2}

A comment later on in the minutes, following the presentation of a paper by Dr. Green, the head of the Southampton laboratory, suggests what a measurable goal for an acceptable level of biological activity might be.

One suggestion was that our aim should be to provide smoking pleasure accompanied by risk no greater than that with comparable habits, such as alcohol. This may already be the position achieved in some countries. {1171.02, p. 5}

New products, first of all, had to be commercially successful. Hazard reduction was couched in relative terms. This stance acknowledged both the reality of the hazard and the practical impossibility of eliminating it.

Duck Key Research Conference, 1974

Twelve delegates from five countries, including the United Kingdom and the United States, attended the 1974 research conference, held at Duck Key, Florida {1125.01}. Discussions concerned work on tobacco substitutes (see below), smoker compensation to achieve a consistent nicotine intake (see chapter 3), puffed (expanded) tobacco, carbon monoxide, caffeine as an additive, selective filtration, sidestream smoke (see chapter 10), and the financing of research, among other topics.

Puffed (expanded) tobacco was being investigated in Germany and Austria. The problem was that cigarettes made of expanded tobacco yielded fewer puffs per cigarette. In expanded tobacco, the layers of the tobacco leaf tissue are forced apart by physical pressure provided by the rapid vaporization of a liquid (such as freon) or solid (such as carbon dioxide in the form of dry ice) that has previously been saturated into the leaf. Expansion increases the volume per unit weight of tobacco. Cigarettes made of expanded tobacco reduce tar delivery because there is less fuel in a given volume if some of it has been puffed up. Carbon monoxide in smoke was recognized as a problem, but available means to reduce CO (such as a lithium hydroxide process) tended to increase the levels of polycyclic aromatics and to increase "tumorigenic activity." The direction of future combustion studies at Southampton was to be directed toward controlling both CO and polycyclic aromatics. Caffeine


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was noted to reduce "tumorigenic activity" of smoke condensate, but concern was expressed about the public relations problems that the use of caffeine as an additive might engender {1125.01, p. 3}.

Product development throughout the company in 1974 centered on "selective filtration and constant puff by puff deliveries." Constant deliveries are most important pharmacologically, since the customer then gets a predictable dose of nicotine with each inhalation. When cigarettes were merely cured, cut leaves wrapped in paper, the product was uneven and nicotine deliveries unpredictable (14). With technological innovations introduced in subsequent decades, cigarettes became much more consistent products. In this connection, a program within BAT of systematically analyzing commercial and technical information on Philip Morris products from around the world was mentioned as worth continuing.

Advertising restrictions attracted discussion. At the time, the only actual restrictions were on broadcast advertising. However, broader restrictions were feared. The conference summary notes,

With increasing restrictions in advertising, there will be less opportunity for the creation of brands in traditional ways (imagery) but an increasing requirement for products to have new visible, demonstrable or detectable attributes. {1125.01, p. 4}

The Duck Key conference highlights the priority that R&D continued to place on making cigarettes safer. Issues of smoker compensation and environmental tobacco smoke appeared for the first time in this series, and a major portion of the conference report was devoted to the search for tobacco substitutes, which is treated in a separate section (see below).

Merano Research Conference, 1975

At the 1975 conference, held at Merano, in northern Italy, much of the discussion centered on tobacco substitute materials such as Cytrel and New Smoking Material (NSM) (see below). The conferees expressed concern that the tobacco substitutes might themselves contribute to the toxicity of cigarettes, resulting in a greater toxic impact than that of regular cigarettes.

The implications of the initiation-promotion hypothesis [of carcinogenesis] on the risks of smokers changing to cigarettes containing substitutes was discussed. It was agreed that this was important and that the mouse skin painting experiment proposal for TRC [the industry research group in the UK] (the so-called cross over experiment) should be supported. If it was not


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agreed at TRC to undertake this experiment it is recommended that consideration should be given to B.A.T. undertaking these or similar experiments. {1173.01, p. 3}

The conference participants recognized that the "smoking and health" issue was never going to go away.

The meeting agreed that the earlier conclusions that cigarette smoking is now irreversibly associated with health issues is still valid. {1173.01, p. 3}

Moreover, the assembled BAT and B&W scientists recognized that their potential contribution could never offer more than a partial solution to the problem. Apparently, some in the group felt that the R&D group had, however, understated its role in prior statements.

It was felt by some members that the assumption that there would be no R & D 'breakthrough' in smoking and health had been misinterpreted in some ways. It was emphasised that this does not mean that there are unlikely to be important R & D contributions. It is believed that considerable and continuing progress will be made leading to a progressive series of product improvements. {1173.01, p. 3}

Technical improvements would never make a cigarette safe; the only credible goal was to make the product less dangerous.

The R&D objectives in the "smoking and health area" were explicitly set forth. These objectives represented a decided departure from the optimism of the 1960s, when it seemed that smoking might be made safe, and revealed a predominantly reactive, defensive posture.

The immediate objective is to provide a scientific contribution in those territories where pressures in relation to smoking and health require such a capability. This function is carried out locally where adequate R & D establishments exist and from G.R. & D.C. [Group Research and Development Centre at Southampton] in their absence. Specific services include:

 

1.

Design of products having attributes dictated by the attitude of local health authorities, e.g. control of smoke constituents considered harmful.

2.

Advice [to management] regarding the health implications of product design and constituents.

3.

Interpretation [for management] of smoking and health discoveries.

4.

Assessment of health implications and availability of materials and processes under development and purported to have a bearing on the smoking and health issue, e.g. N.T.M.s [new tobacco materials].

As a longer range, and perhaps never ending, objective R & D has a goal of developing products that respond positively to scientific information having relevance to smoking and health.

...


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Until such time as assay methods already developed, or to be developed, are given authoritative endorsement by medical experts, the longer range work will remain as basic research. {1173.01, p. 5}

The immediate goal was to provide assistance to management in responding to public relations and regulatory demands. The provision of a less dangerous product for its own sake was relegated to a secondary role.

Sydney Research Conference, 1978

The minutes of the 1978 research conference, held in Sydney, Australia, reflect the acceptance by BAT and B&W scientists that smoking causes serious disease. Moreover, they expressed hope that the generation of low-tar cigarettes already on the market would prove to be far safer than those having higher-tar deliveries.

The first conclusion of the meeting affirmed the absence of any scientific controversy on smoking and health.

There has been no change in the scientific basis for the case against smoking. Additional evidence of smoke-dose related incidence of some diseases associated with smoking has been published. But generally this has long ceased to be an area for scientific controversy. ... The meeting affirmed that cigarettes acceptable on all counts can probably be achieved by research and, indeed, may in fact be available [emphasis added]. {1174.01, p. 1}

This frank statement stands in marked contrast to the industry's public posture that a substantial controversy still existed.

Near the end of the minutes from this meeting, a discussion of less dangerous cigarettes includes an important epidemiological definition of what such a product would be.

Cigarettes of substantially reduced biological activity (SRBA) can be made by product modification and will continue to present a range of marketing opportunities. By SRBA is meant cigarettes where epidemiology would show no greater incidence of disease for smokers than non-smokers. But there remains a need for credible biological tests to facilitate developments. Credibility will continually evolve but could be provided by outside independent medical and scientific advice.

As indicated in Note 1 [quoted above], we may already have an SRBA cigarette and it may be worth studying epidemiologically the current smokers of low tar products over the next decade . But until this evidence is available alternative products should be developed. To do this, research must provide a continuing basis for cigarette formulation and design for related process needs and better understanding of smokers' behaviour. Defensive research will need to be provided for as far ahead as can be seen and this may well include social aspects [emphasis added]. {1174.01, pp. 6–7}


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While the industry was publicly insisting that incidence of disease, as measured in epidemiological studies, is not a valid measure of disease causation, the BAT scientists privately adopted incidence of disease as the measure of degree of biological activity against which to evaluate the success of efforts to make a "safe" cigarette. There is no scientific controversy here. Cigarettes cause serious diseases.

The companies' scientists were saying that biological testing is only used as an indirect measure of what really matters—namely, whether customers of tobacco companies get sick and die more often than people who do not smoke. The official dogma, in contrast, is that epidemiology can never be used to reach conclusions, and that there is no animal model that proves causation. The absolute standard for measuring success of the R&D effort to make a less dangerous cigarette is whether fewer people get sick from smoking the supposedly SRBA product. In fact, the goal is that the SRBA smoke not cause any detectable excess incidence of disease. Unfortunately, the low-tar cigarettes that the group hoped were SRBA devices have not turned out to be substantially less hazardous than other cigarettes (7).

This passage sharply illuminates what is perhaps the most distressing aspect of the tobacco problem. Scientists at B&W and BAT were intent on developing a safe product. At the same time, tobacco products known to be dangerous were being continually produced by their employers and sold to the public. Even when the scientists believed (wrongly) that they might have developed a safe product, it was marketed for only a special segment of the market. That is, products known to be dangerous were kept on the market, whereas those thought to be safe were introduced only as niche brands. Moreover, the supposedly safe brands had not been adequately tested and therefore had not been proven safe. The tests that counted, the results of epidemiological studies of the companies' customers, were necessarily post-marketing research that would take many years to complete.

London Research Conference, 1979

The R&D conference held in London in the fall of 1979 was notable for the brief discussion in the minutes of the biological testing program.

The expenditure at Southampton on biological testing represents a significant portion of the total R&D expenditure (£0.54m internal and £0.37m external out of £5.3m gross total). Before agreement can be reached on the details


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on any proposed programme of work, it was thought essential to have established the current Board policy on research on smoking issues e.g. (a) for early warning, (b) as evidence of a responsible attitude by the Group, (c) as the basis for future positive support to Group products. {1176.02, p. 9}

At the time, then, BAT was spending £910,000 per annum on its biological testing program through the Southampton facility. As the references to "early warning" and "responsible attitude" indicate, the scientists regarded the value of the work as mainly defensive; possible product improvements based on this work seemed of secondary importance. This emphasis may simply have reflected their realization that a "safe" cigarette was not an achievable goal and that the company had other pragmatic reasons to do work in this area.

Pichlarn Research Conference, 1981

The 1981 research conference was held in Pichlarn, Austria, in August {1178.01}. Smoker compensation, the tendency for consumers to smoke low-delivery products more vigorously than higher-delivery products (see chapter 3), was a theme that came up in several places. For instance, the strategic objective for filters referred to "human smoking patterns."

To develop novel filters and novel filter technology aimed at the development of marketable low-tar products, paying particular regard to human smoking patterns. {1178.01, p. 3}

Similarly, in the discussion of carbon monoxide in cigarette smoke, "human smoking pat[t]erns"—that is, the way people actually smoke, in contrast to the way machines smoke—also are mentioned:

Though the political relevance of medical opinion on the importance of CO [carbon monoxide] varies between countries, it was agreed that GR&DC should continue to seek means of reducing the CO/tar ratio of the main types of products. Before any such products are offered commercially, it would be advisable that they should have been examined in the context of human smoking pat[t]erns. ...

It is felt that the time is close when Government agencies worldwide will take more notice of compensation—and of the scale of the differences, for a given commercial product, between smoking machine numbers and the dose of smoke actually obtained by smokers. This issue may well go beyond the simple technical measurement of deliveries. If for no other reason than defence, we must pay increasing attention as to how our products—especially new products—are smoked by different categories of smokers. {1178.01, pp. 13–14}


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Compensation, recognized by BAT and B&W scientists in the early 1970s, threatened to undermine the potential benefits of well-intentioned improvements in cigarette design. Instead of dealing with this threat as a problem in toxicology, however, company scientists seemed more pressed by its regulatory implications.

Montebello Research Conference, 1982

The minutes of the 1982 conference, held at Montebello, Canada, acknowledge that smoking and health problems had not been solved despite a quarter century of work on them. The following notes summarize discussions under the heading "Smoke Quality."

Despite intense research over the past 25 years, the biological activity of smoke remains a major challenge. In particular, it is not known in quantitative terms whether the smoke from modern low and ultra-low delivery products has a lower specific biological activity than that from previous high delivery products. Nor is it clearly established (other than in broad terms such as sheet and stem) what are the main factors that influence biological activity. In the UK, the Independent Scientific Committee is calling for information on the quality of smoke from modern products, but the formulation of an appropriate research programme will prove extremely difficult and will need very careful planning. The US Surgeon General has previously also drawn attention to the general need for a better understanding of biological activity.

In a survey of the current US scene, the broad area of smoking and health (less hazardous cigarette, additives, self-extinguishing cigarette [to reduce the risk of cigarette-caused fires]), the possibility was identified that a competitor could in the future well make competitive capital out of health-related attributes, eg low nitrosamines or even a biological index.

The Canadian contribution to the Group Biological Programme, which is closely co-ordinated with GR&DC [Group Research and Development Centre], will concentrate on factors that might influence mutagenic [cell changing] activity:

 

(a)

Different tobacco types including sheet.

(b)

Smoking regime—human vs standard smoking machine.

(c)

Product design features.

The research at McGill University, which is funded by the Canadian Tobacco Manufacturers Council, will also contribute to Group knowledge. {1179.01, pp. 4–5}

This passage acknowledges that BAT and B&W scientists did not know "in quantitative terms" whether the innovations they had pioneered were effective in lowering the biological activity of the products. Pressure from public health quarters continued unabated. Especially trou-


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blesome was the presence of nitrosamines, extremely potent carcinogens in tobacco. Nitrosamines also presented a possible competitive problem if another company made claims about low nitrosamine levels.

Concerns about nitrosamines are further emphasized in the outline of work to be undertaken in the following three years (1983–85). Since nicotine and other nicotinic alkaloids in tobacco combine with nitrates to form the tobacco-specific nitrosamines (15), removal of nitrates from tobacco (thereby reducing levels of this precursor of nitrosamines) was regarded as a priority {1179.01, p. 15}. A related investigation would try to determine whether "certain nitrogen-containing components [nitrates and proteins/amino acids {1164.26, appendix F}] are major precursors of smoke mutagenicity" {1179.01, p. 16}.

In addition to these veiled references, the specific discussion about nitrosamines is summarized as follows:

There was support for the identification of this [nitrosamines] as a new Work Area. It was emphasized, however, that the approach should be two-pronged, ie:

 

(i)

Understanding the routes by which nitrosamines in whole smoke are formed, and possible modification thereof by additives etc.

(ii)

Selective removal of nitrosamines.

Before starting experimental work on the environmental analysis of nitrosamines, the past work of Wynder and Hoffman, Philip Morris and the German Verband should be fully appraised. {1179.01, p. 17}

Stems, otherwise valued for their relatively low tar production, were high in nitrates and so could potentially contribute to nitrosamine formation. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, many patents were issued to tobacco companies on ways to remove nitrates.


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Chapter 4 The Search for a "Safe" Cigarette
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