Cigarette firm destroyed studies, review finds

[Miswak Association for health and Environment Researchs]

Cigarette firm destroyed studies, review finds
14/10/2009 6:00:21 PM
CBC News
Imperial Tobacco Canada destroyed up to 60 early studies that linked
cigarettes to addiction and carcinogens, according to a review
published Wednesday in the online Canadian Medical Association
Journal.


The internal studies, done from 1967 to 1984, were destroyed in 1992
on orders from head office at British American Tobacco in the United
Kingdom to avoid "exposing the company to liability or embarrassment,"
the authors of the review say.
The studies were later uncovered in British American Tobacco files,
which began to be made available through disclosure during a U.S.
trial in 1998, Dr. David Hammond of the University of Waterloo said in
an interview.
Hammond said he and his team undertook the review because they knew
the studies existed and involved high-quality research into cigarette
design and the health effects of smoking.
He said it wasn't the team's intention to judge Imperial Tobacco, but
after the review of the documents it was impossible not to.
"Not only did they not reveal these studies but they destroyed them,"
said Hammond, whose research at the University of Waterloo focuses on
cancer prevention. "It's very difficult to write this review from any
other angle. What was the evidence they were so worried about being
uncovered?"
Hammond's team concluded that the destruction of the research
documents has implications for industry liability and litigation now
underway in Canada.
Last month, Ontario launched a $50-billion lawsuit against Imperial
Tobacco. British Columbia and New Brunswick have also filed lawsuits
against the company.
Hammond said the uncovered studies were particularly interesting
because they were funded by the cigarette company itself and showed
Imperial was trying to improve the safety of its product.
"They took on the research in good faith," Hammond said. "The problem
is they weren't getting the results they wanted. And the product
modifications they pursued weren't working."
A lot of the studies the tobacco company ordered destroyed looked at
the effects of filtered versus unfiltered cigarettes and the effects
of second-hand smoke.
In many cases, the studies contradicted conventional beliefs at the
time that filtered cigarettes were safer than non-filtered and that
second-hand smoke was not dangerous, the review found.
In one of the older studies, a senior research scientist found that
people smoking filtered cigarettes inhaled more smoke to get about the
same amount of nicotine they'd get from unfiltered.
Eleven of the destroyed documents focused on original research about
the effects of second-hand smoke. These studies, most of which were
experiments performed on rats, indicated cellular changes from second-
hand smoke.
"The scientists concluded that second-hand smoke was in fact more
toxic than mainstream smoke "especially for low-delivery cigarettes,"
Hammond said.
Hammond said it was a huge task to find the documents, which were
released piecemeal during various U.S. trials against cigarette
companies.
"I'm not joking when I say there were tens of millions of pages. We
located one and then tracked down the others."
Hammond said he wonders what might have changed had the cigarette
companies made their findings public, adding that targeted anti-
smoking campaigns might have been launched much earlier.