Michael Cummings, PhD, of Roswell Park Cancer Institute, and colleagues examined 116 documents prepared by lawyers during litigation against the industry in 1998, secret industry papers and polling data on public perceptions of the links between ill health and smoking, in the light of the Frank Statement published by the industry in 1954.

In 1954, US tobacco manufacturers jointly took out an advertisement which questioned research findings implicating smoking as a cause of cancer. Consumers were promised that cigarettes were safe and given a pledge that the allegations would be investigated because the public’s health was paramount.

The ad was published in 448 newspapers in 258 cities, reaching an estimated 43,245,000 Americans.

But, say the authors, internal memos and reports show that some senior industry scientists and executives knew about the cancer risks of smoking as early as the 1940s, and were aware that it could cause lung cancer by the mid 1950s. In 1961, an industry memo states that the “biologically active materials present in tobacco are cancer causing, cancer promoting and poisonous.”

Yet, the article goes on, the industry continued to reassure the public and its stockholders, denying that smoking was harmful right up to 1999. In 1976, RJ Reynolds responded to a man whose father was a smoker and had been diagnosed with lung cancer: “We firmly believe that cigarettes have been unfairly blamed as a cause of human disease.”

The bodies set up by the industry to look into the health effects of smoking carried out studies that were only remotely related to smoking and health, say the authors, but gave the appearance that the industry took health issues seriously.

An internal memo in 1972 from the president of the Tobacco Industry Research Committee described the industry’s strategy for the past 20 years as “creating doubt about the health charge without actually denying it,” the article declares.

A 1995 survey indicated that around two in every three smokers did not believe they were at greater risk of heart attack or cancer than non-smokers. The authors conclude that the industry’s failure to keep its promises has led to consumer ignorance about the habit, and may have kept more people smoking since the Frank Statement was issued.

(Reference: Failed promises of the cigarette industry and its effect on consumer misperceptions about the health risks of smoking Tobacco Control 2002; 11 [suppl 1] i110-17.)

Related website:

Roswell Park Cancer Institute


[Contact: Michael Cummings PhD, British Medical Association]

12-Mar-2002