Daily Doc: BAT, Jan 15, 1969: Arguing against cautionary labels
Daily Doc: Arguing against cautionary labels
Title: No title
BAT, Jan 15, 1969
Bates #: 100425422/5425
February 28, 2000
This is a letter from an employee of the British American Tobacco's Research Planning Department helping a tobacco company executive in Sydney, Australia formulate an argument against his government's proposal to mandate warning labels on cigarettes.
CITATION
Title: No title
Type of Document: Letter
Author: Felton D.G, Research Planning Dept., British-American Tobacco Co. Limited
Date: 19690115
Page Count: 4
Site: U.S. Centers for Disease Control Tobacco Industry Document Site: http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/industrydocs/index.htm (Guildford Set)
Bates No. 100425422 - 100425425
URL: http://outside.cdc.gov:8080/BASIS/ncctld/web/mnimages/EDW?W=DETAILSID=752
QUOTES
We have received your letter of 6th January, requesting our view on the questions of labelling cigarette packs with:
(a) a cautionary warning;
(b) TPM and /or nicotine deliveries
Obviously, no-one in the industry would favor such a step, but the arguments against the one or the other would seem to be different. Therefore, I would like to separate them in my reply.
(a) Cautionary Warning.
Any reasoned counter-argument here must depend on the exact wording. A vague statement such as "Cigarette Smoking may be harmful to health" is a lot easier to live with then something more specific, such as "Excessive cigarette smoking is associated with an increased risk of death from lung cancer." If a clause such as the latter were used, I cannot think of any argument in refutation other than that the risk depends also on the nature of the product, the nationality of the smoker, his origin of birth and the degree of urbanisation to which he has been exposed. But none of these other factors excludes the degree of exposure to smoke.
Perhaps it shows the extent of my "conditioning" by anti-smoking propaganda, but I cannot think of a good scientific argument against a cautionary warning in general terms, except that it presupposes that the biological activity of tobacco smoke from all types of cigarette products is similar...When the cautionary label was introduced in the U.S.A., some people believed that this served warning on the consumer of the "risk" and that it would put an end to all law suits against tobacco companies....
Whether a constantly reiterated caution of this type has any effect on smoker is, I suggest, outside the argument. Personally, I doubt the value of it.
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