Tobacco Working Group TWG
(Federally funded project to create a safer cigarette) A federally supported project launched by the National Cancer Institute, with the purpose of developing a less hazardous cigarette.The Tobacco Working Group was a federally supported project launched by the National Cancer Institute, with the purpose of developing a less hazardous cigarette. The documents show that the tobacco companies participated in the meetings of the TWG and attempted to influence the group's work. At first, the tobacco industry attempted to convince the members of the TWG that cigarettes are not dangerous. When this strategy failed, the industry gained unexpected assistance from Dr. Gio Gori, Deputy Director of the National Cancer Institute's Division of Cancer Cause and Prevention and Chairman of the TWG. Gori publicized the idea that less hazardous cigarettes could be created. Gori's proposal ultimately became an embarrassment for the federal government, which was focused on getting smokers to quit, but was a boom for the tobacco industry. The tobacco industry took advantage of Gori's proposal and its marketing of low tar and extra low tar cigarettes. On February 8, 1973, the Department of Health, Education and Welfare issued a charter for the TWG, which made it a formal and multi-disciplinary group consisting of researchers from academia, the government, and the tobacco companies. The group had actually begun meeting informally in 1968 to discuss generally research related to smoking and health, cancer, cardiovascular disease, and respiratory disease. In 1973 Charter specified that the purpose of the group was to "identify the criteria and prescribe methods for the development of a less hazardous cigarette, and other methods to decrease the smoking hazard." [B&W 1402.02]. (The Cigarette Papers, pg. 155)