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National Cancer Institute NCI

Division of Cancer Prevention and Control, National Cancer Institute located in Rockville, MD

The National Cancer Institute is the Division of Cancer Prevention and Control, National Cancer Institute located in Rockville, MD (Orleans & Slade). The NCI had a program to make a less hazardous cigarette, which was halted in the late 1970's (NYT 5/13/94). The NCI supported a program to develop a "less hazardous cigarette" from 1966 through 1978. The NCI program evaluated over 100 different cigarette designs (RJR Statement 4/14/94). Cocoa is a cigarette additive. In 1977, the National Cancer Institute reported that condensed tar from cocoa-flavored cigarettes caused more tumors in mice than did tar from unflavored cigarettes. "[C]ocoa should probably not be added to cigarettes" according to Thomas Owen, head of NCI's smoking and health program (E. Whelan 1984). In a July 1994 letter to the National Cancer Institute, FTC chairman Janet Steiger asked the NCI to review the FTC's method for rating tar and nicotine levels of cigarettes. Steiger said there was a concern that FTC's tests failed to take into account the possibility that people change their smoking habits to compensate for lower nicotine and tar. In the FTC's tests, a machine pulls air through a gauze pad that traps the tar and nicotine (NYT 7/21/94). Dr. Miles Braun and colleagues at the NCI did a study of twins, published in the Lancet (August 1994), which found no evidence of a genetic component for lung cancer (Reuters 8/11/94). See Braun, Dr. Miles, TTLA Almanac - Names.