Forty years on: A war to recognise and win: How the tobacco industry has survived the revelations on smoking and health

British Medical Bulletin

Volumn 52, Issue 1, 1996, Pages 174-182

  Pollock, David ^a,b  

^a Action on Smoking and Health   (United Kingdom)

^b NONE   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ADVERTIZING; GOVERNMENT; INDUSTRY; POLICY; PRIORITY JOURNAL; PUBLIC HEALTH; REVIEW; SMOKING; TOBACCO; UNITED KINGDOM; UNITED STATES;

ADVERTISING; HISTORY, 19TH CENTURY; HISTORY, 20TH CENTURY; HUMANS; INDUSTRY; PLANTS, TOXIC; SMOKING; TOBACCO;

EID: 0030070416     PISSN: 00071420     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.bmb.a011524     Document Type: Article

References (32)

1. BAT Annual Report 1994
2. Philip Morris Annual Report 1993
3. A Counter-Blaste to Tobacco 1603
4. Hill A. ed. A Counter-Blast to Tobacco, The Rodale Press, 1954, quoted in Taylor P. The Smoke Ring, 2nd edn. London: Sphere, 1985
5. Hill A. ed. A Counter-Blast to Tobacco, The Rodale Press, 1954, quoted in Taylor P. The Smoke Ring, 2nd edn. London: Sphere, 1985
6. Henningfield JE. Nicotine - an old-fashioned addiction. London: Burke, 1985: p 94 sqq
7. Goodman J. Tobacco in History. London: Routledge, 1993
8. Tobacco Reporter, March 1995: p 12
9. BAT Annual Report 1994
10. Cabinet minutes, 10 February 1954
11. Minutes of GEN 588 Cabinet committee, 7 May 1957
12. 'The Government should not seek to intrude into the sphere of an individual's personal responsibility. It was, however, important to stress [in a forthcoming statement] this element of personal choice since direct Government action was excluded.' Minutes of Cabinet GEN 588 committee, 3 June 1957
13. Geissbuhler H, Haselbach C. The Fate of Nicotine in the Body: Report for BAT from Battelle Memorial Institute. Geneva: unpublished, 1963. This and most of the other company documents quoted in this article have since the time it was prepared been published on the Internet by Prof. Stanton Glantz of the University of California in San Francisco. They can be accessed at http:// www.library.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/html/xxxx.xx , where the individual document reference number replaces the 'xxxx.xx'. This report is document Ref. 1200.20. The documents are introduced in the first of the series of articles published in a special edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association in July 1995 (see Glantz et al. JAMA 1995; 274: 219-24)
14. Geissbuhler H, Haselbach C. The Fate of Nicotine in the Body: Report for BAT from Battelle Memorial Institute. Geneva: unpublished, 1963. This and most of the other company documents quoted in this article have since the time it was prepared been published on the Internet by Prof. Stanton Glantz of the University of California in San Francisco. They can be accessed at http:// www.library.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/html/xxxx.xx , where the individual document reference number replaces the 'xxxx.xx'. This report is document Ref. 1200.20. The documents are introduced in the first of the series of articles published in a special edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association in July 1995 (see Glantz et al. JAMA 1995; 274: 219-24)
15. Geissbuhler H, Haselbach C. The Fate of Nicotine in the Body: Report for BAT from Battelle Memorial Institute. Geneva: unpublished, 1963. This and most of the other company documents quoted in this article have since the time it was prepared been published on the Internet by Prof. Stanton Glantz of the University of California in San Francisco. They can be accessed at http:// www.library.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/html/xxxx.xx , where the individual document reference number replaces the 'xxxx.xx'. This report is document Ref. 1200.20. The documents are introduced in the first of the series of articles published in a special edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association in July 1995 (see Glantz et al. JAMA 1995; 274: 219-24)
16. Cabinet minutes 10 February 1954. The calculated use of cash has been taken much further in the USA, but one spectacularly successful example in the UK was the gift (under the voluntary agreement of 1983) of (reportedly) £11 million to fund a Health Promotion Research Trust - provided its work ignored tobacco. The effect was to produce, until the HPRT was wound up in 1993, division and dissension in the health community between those urging a boycott of 'dirty money' and those compelled to accept it if their work was to be funded at all
17. This account is based on unpublished notes in ASH's possession of a journalist's interview in 1981 with Dr SJ Green, then recently retired after about 20 years as research director of BAT
18. Yeoman A. Implications of Battelle Hippo I & II and the Griffith Filter. Unpublished paper dated 17 July 1963 - Internet Ref. 1802.05 (see Note 12)
19. Just two years later, the same Dr Griffith was to cause alarm on his return from a visit to England when he reported: 'scientists with whom I talked were unanimous in their opinion that smoke is weakly carcinogenic' and that BAT's 'entire laboratory facilities are operating on a 'crash' basis on the smoking and health problem' (report to Brown and Williamson Executive Committee, July 1965) - Internet Ref. 1805.01 (see Note 12)
20. Hargrove GC. Smoking and Health. 12 June 1970 - Internet Ref. 1186.01 (see Note 12)
21. For example, Sir John Partridge, then chairman of Imperial Tobacco, used it in 1975 at the company's AGM: 'as a company we do not make, indeed we are not qualified to make, medical judgements... As with so many other things where excess of use has a bearing, responsibility must lie with the only person able to exercise control - the consumer' - Internet Ref. 2231.04 (see Note 12)
22. Green SJ. Cigarette Smoking and Causal Relationships. 27 October 1976 - Internet Ref. 2331.08 (see Note 12). The question of the sufficiency of grounds for action was raised both (a) in the Government's decision in 1957 to remove from a Medical Research Council statement before publication the observation that 'the evidence [about smoking and lung cancer] now available is stronger than that which in comparable matters, is commonly taken as a basis for definite action' (Cabinet committee GEN 588, minutes of 7 May 1957) and (b) in the House of Commons Health Committee's accusation that in rejecting a ban on tobacco advertising the Government was 'awaiting a level of proof about its effectiveness which is in the nature of things unobtainable' (Second report, 1992/93: The European Commission's Proposed Directive on the Advertising of Tobacco Products. London: HMSO, 1992)
23. Green SJ. Cigarette Smoking and Causal Relationships. 27 October 1976 - Internet Ref. 2331.08 (see Note 12). The question of the sufficiency of grounds for action was raised both (a) in the Government's decision in 1957 to remove from a Medical Research Council statement before publication the observation that 'the evidence [about smoking and lung cancer] now available is stronger than that which in comparable matters, is commonly taken as a basis for definite action' (Cabinet committee GEN 588, minutes of 7 May 1957) and (b) in the House of Commons Health Committee's accusation that in rejecting a ban on tobacco advertising the Government was 'awaiting a level of proof about its effectiveness which is in the nature of things unobtainable' (Second report, 1992/93: The European Commission's Proposed Directive on the Advertising of Tobacco Products. London: HMSO, 1992)
24. Public Record Office reference BT 258: 1405. July 1962
25. By 1977, BAT's director of research was asking his chairman: 'should we 'cheat' smokers by 'cheating' League Tables? . . . should we use our superior knowledge of our products to design them so that they give low league table positions but higher deliveries on human smoking?' (Suggested Questions for CAC.III, 26 August 1977) - Internet Ref. 2231.09 (see Note 12)
26. BAT transcript
27. Quoted in The Nation 6 May 1991; The Observer 10 November 1991. Similarly, in the USA, RJ Reynolds' 'Old Joe Camel' cartoon lifted Camel's share of the under-18 marker from 0.5% to 32.8% while leaving the adult share untouched (DiFranza J et al. RJR Nabisco's cartoon camel promotes Camel cigarettes to children. JAMA 1991; 266: 3149-53); while in the UK, the playground humour of Imperial Tobacco's 'Reg' advertising campaign seems to have increased the prevalence of smoking by under-age teenage boys in the areas where it ran, while prevalence was unchanged elsewhere (An Investigation of the Appeal and Impact of the Embassy Regal 'Reg' Campaign on Young People. London: Health Education Authority, September 1993)
28. Quoted in The Nation 6 May 1991; The Observer 10 November 1991. Similarly, in the USA, RJ Reynolds' 'Old Joe Camel' cartoon lifted Camel's share of the under-18 marker from 0.5% to 32.8% while leaving the adult share untouched (DiFranza J et al. RJR Nabisco's cartoon camel promotes Camel cigarettes to children. JAMA 1991; 266: 3149-53); while in the UK, the playground humour of Imperial Tobacco's 'Reg' advertising campaign seems to have increased the prevalence of smoking by under-age teenage boys in the areas where it ran, while prevalence was unchanged elsewhere (An Investigation of the Appeal and Impact of the Embassy Regal 'Reg' Campaign on Young People. London: Health Education Authority, September 1993)
29. Quoted in The Nation 6 May 1991; The Observer 10 November 1991. Similarly, in the USA, RJ Reynolds' 'Old Joe Camel' cartoon lifted Camel's share of the under-18 marker from 0.5% to 32.8% while leaving the adult share untouched (DiFranza J et al. RJR Nabisco's cartoon camel promotes Camel cigarettes to children. JAMA 1991; 266: 3149-53); while in the UK, the playground humour of Imperial Tobacco's 'Reg' advertising campaign seems to have increased the prevalence of smoking by under-age teenage boys in the areas where it ran, while prevalence was unchanged elsewhere (An Investigation of the Appeal and Impact of the Embassy Regal 'Reg' Campaign on Young People. London: Health Education Authority, September 1993)
30. Quoted in The Nation 6 May 1991; The Observer 10 November 1991. Similarly, in the USA, RJ Reynolds' 'Old Joe Camel' cartoon lifted Camel's share of the under-18 marker from 0.5% to 32.8% while leaving the adult share untouched (DiFranza J et al. RJR Nabisco's cartoon camel promotes Camel cigarettes to children. JAMA 1991; 266: 3149-53); while in the UK, the playground humour of Imperial Tobacco's 'Reg' advertising campaign seems to have increased the prevalence of smoking by under-age teenage boys in the areas where it ran, while prevalence was unchanged elsewhere (An Investigation of the Appeal and Impact of the Embassy Regal 'Reg' Campaign on Young People. London: Health Education Authority, September 1993)
31. As long ago as 1971, a BAT document predicted: 'no further advertising within 3 years - at most within 5 years' (speaking notes entitled 'Smoking and Health Session, Chelwood, 28 May 1971: Talk 4: Likely commercial development' - Internet Ref. 1186.07 [see Note 12]). Twentythree years later, the industry, and the Government, were still avoiding a ban on advertising, as proposed by the European Commission and by Kevin Barron MP's Private Member's Bill, by adroit use of a revision of the voluntary agreement, as is explicit in a leaked memorandum of 5 November 1993 to the Prime Minister from the Health Secretary, Mrs Virginia Bottomley
32. The Island (Sri Lanka). 29 October 1993