Implications Of Battelle Hippo I & II And The Grifffith Filter

Anne Landman's Collection

Implications Of Battelle Hippo I & II And The Grifffith Filter

Date: 17 Jul 1963
Length: 5 pages
N/A

http://tobaccodocuments.org/landman/1802.05.html

Abstract

In this 1963 document, Addison Yeaman, General Counsel of Brown and Williamson Tobacco Company, discusses strategies the tobacco industry can use to get away with continuing to manufacture and sell its products in the face of adverse sugeon general's warnings and dire health claims. This document contains the famous quote:

"Moreover, nicotine is addictive.

We are, then, in the business of selling nicotine, an addictive drug..."

Yeaman proposes the formation of a new "lavishly funded" research organization to give the appearance of researching the causes of lung disease, cancer, etc. because doing so would allow the industry to say:

"We challenge those charges [that smoking causes illness] and we have assumed our obligation to determine their truth or falsity by creating the new Tobacco Research Foudnation. In the mean time (we say) here is our triple, or quadruple or quintuple filter, capable of removing whatever constituent of smoke is currently suspect while delivering full flavor -- and incidentally-- a nice jolt of nicotine. And if we are the first to be able to make and sustain that claim, what price Kent?"

Fields

Notes

(fileset_code WAS INVALID IN OLD DATABASE: UCSF)

Quotes

The determineation by Battelle of the "tranquilizing" function of nicotine, as received by the human system in the delivered smoke of cigarettes, together with nicotine's possible effect on obesity, delivers to the industry what may well be its first effective instrument of propaganda to counter that of the American Cancer Society, et al, damning cigarettes as having a causal relationship to cancer of the lung...

...We must, I think, recognize that in defense of the industry and in preservation of its present earnings position, we must either a) disprove the theory of causal relationship or b) discover the carcinogen or carcinogens, co-carcinogens or whatever, and demonstrate our ability to remove or neutralize them. This means that we must embark -- in whatever form of organization -- on massive and impressively financed research into the etiology of cancer as it related to the use of tobacco...Certainly one would hope to prove there is no etiological factor in smoke but the odds are greatly against success in that effort. At the best, the probabilities are that some combination of constitutents of smoke will be found conducive to the onset of cancer or create en enviornment in which cancer in more likely to occur.

The TIRC cannot, in my opinion, provide the vehicle for such research. It was concieved as a public relations gesture...and it has functioned as a public relations operation. Moreover its organization, certainly in its present form, does not allow the breadth of research -- cancer, emphysems, cardiovascular idsorders, etc. -- essential to the protection of the tobacco industry...

Battelle says:

"The reasons for the 'pleasure of smoking' must be found partly in the relief of anxiety that cigarette smoking brings so constantly, and in such a very short time..."

...The so-called 'beneficial' effects of nicotine are of two kinds:

1. Enhancing effect on the pituitary-adrenal response to stress; 2. Regulation of body weight..."

Moreover, nicotine is addictive.

We are, then, in the business of selling nicotine, an addictive drug effective in the release of stress mechanisms. But cigarettes -- we will assume the Surgeon General's committee to say -- despite the benificent effect of nicotine, have certain unatrrative side effects:

1) They cause, or predispose to, lung cancer. 2) They contribute to ceratin cardiovascular disorders. 3) They may well be truly caustative in emphysema, etc. etc.

We challenge those charges and we have assumed our obligation to determine their truth or falsity by creating the new Tobacco Research Foudnation. In the mean time (we say) here is our triple, or quadruple or quintuple filter, capable of removing whatever constituent of smoke is currently suspect while delivering full flavor -- and incidentally-- a nice jolt of nicotine. And if we are the first to be able to make and sustain that claim, what price Kent?

Dare we as a matter of policy make such claims? If they are true and if we make no claim of freedom from danger -- indeed, if we cry caution -- why should we not?

Company