Waltz, P.
Wakeham, H.
This document was used as a trial exhibit in Minnesota's case against the tobacco industry, as well as more recently in the Boeken case in California.
Tobacco smoke contains nitrosamines, which, according to this 1963 letter to Helmut Wakeham (vice president in charge of research at Philip Morris) are "the most potent carcinogens known." A report published prior to this time, in 1962, in the journal Toxicology and Microbiology (a copy of which was also found on the Philip Morris site) entitled "N-Nitroso Compounds and their Precursors in the Environment" states that humans get "life-style" exposure to nitrosamines from tobacco and tobacco smoke. A quote from that report says:
"The concentration of nitrosamines found in tobacco products represents the highest human exposure to N-nitroso compounds....To date, over 20 different preformed N-Nitroso compounds have been found in tobacco products..." (Philip Morris site, Bates No. 2060547756/7784, URL http://www.pmdocs.com/getallimg.asp?if=avpidx&DOCID=2060547756/7784
Today's document is a letter from a researcher in Switzerland who attended a meeting to determine the "state of analytical methods to disprove [the presence of nitrosamines] in tobacco leaves and smoke." The scientist writes to Dr. Wakeham stating:
"I thought the importance of the [study on nitrosamines] is such that you might be interested in an immediate short notice of the highlights of the problem discussed...
Some 60 Nitrosamines -- as well as Dialkyl as more complex and assymetrical compounds -- have been tested. They are all carcinogenic and what is more organo-specific. According tot he compound used and according to the way of application (intravenous, oral, sucutaneous), cancer is produced in a given site such as lung, liver, bladder, oesphagus, stomac and also for the first time in history, in brain...The dosage needed to induce cancer in test animals is for most Nitrosamines exceedingly low. In some instances a unique application is sufficient....Hamsters on inhalation with tobacco smoke after 8 months show lung lesions (there is reasonable belief that in several more months lung carcinomas will be obtained). Under similar (not identical) conditions lung cancer have been obtained with Nitrosamines...As a whole one can say that the Nitrosamines are very potent carcinogens, potent mutagenes, that they have a very good dose-response relationship, an astonishing relation between structure and organotropic action, that their effect on the chemical structure of the attacked organism is better known that for most other carcinogens..."