Anne Landman's Daily Document: Moral Issue on FTC Tar
Daily Doc: Moral Issue on FTC Tar
Moral Issue on FTC TarPM, Mar 7, 1974
Bates No. 1000211075/1076
February 8, 2000
So much irony is contained in this Philip Morris internal memo it's almost amusing.
In this document, a tobacco a company executive rationalizes to others inside the company, assuring them of the moral correctness of failing to disclose to public health agencies that FTC tests reveal incorrect tar levels for their products. Then, once the writer has justified that, he says that tar intake can be lowered if smokers are re-trained to take fewer (or smaller) puffs (but, unfortunately, fails to say whose duty it might be to re-train the hapless smokers). Finally, the writer cites the experience gleaned "in public health work," that reveals it's more effective to give up on the agent and instead modify his environment ["In general the modification of agent or environment has been more successful...chlorination of water, pasteurization of milk) than changing behavior (overcoming obesity, increasing physical exercise)."] It is the ultimate irony to see a tobacco company scientist cite examples of hisotircal public health successes as part of his rationalization for causing massive damag to public health.
Finally, the last few lines of this document should reinforce to us how effective banning smoking in public places could be. Indeed, doing so could constitute one of the great, all-time public health measures. So little cost could reap such a tremendous improvement in public health! Hey, even the tobacco industry points out how effective such environmental measures are in improving public health.
My thanks to Dr. Ronald Davis for forwarding me this document.
CITATION
Title: Moral Issue on FTC Tar
Type of Document: Memo
From: R. Fagan
To: H. Wakeham
Date: 19740307
Site: Philip Morris document site http://www.pmdocs.com/ Bates No. 1000211075/1076
Page Count: 2
URL: http://www.pmdocs.com/getallimg.asp?DOCID=1000211075/1076
Litigation usage: Texas, Minnesota selected
QUOTES
1. Some concern has been expressed concerning the moral obligation of Philip Morris (and perhaps the tobacco industry) to reveal to the FTC the fact that some cigarette smokers may be getting more tar than the FTC rating of that cigarette....
2. I believe that there need be no such concern, at least from a position of morality. It is obvious that HEW knows that smokers can vary their intake. Otherwise they would not urge smokers to take fewer puffs....
3. The FTC tar and nicotine rating is an indicator of the delivery. The assumption...is that the smoker's puffing habits will not change. There is no assumption that the number of cigarettes or that the number of puffs will change. Granting that puffing behavior...remain constant, then the cigarette with a lower FTC tar will deliver to the smoker less tar than a cigarette with a higher FTV rating. And that is all the FTC and HEW are trying to do with the publicized.
4. If one accepts a dose relation between tar and some indicator of pathology then that what the FTC and HEW is trying to accomplish is to get the smoker to reduce his dose. Obviously, there are essentially two ways to do this: a) present the smoker with cigarettes which deliver less tar and b) teach smokers to smoke in a manner which gives him less tar...
5. In public health work the two modes mentioned in the previous paragraphs have always been considered in most problems - modification of the agent and environment or changing the behavior (or life-style) of the host. In general the modification of agent or environment has been more successful (chlorination of water, pasteurization of milk) than changing behavior (overcoming obesity, increasing physical exercise).
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Anne Landman, Regional Program Coordinator
American Lung Association of Colorado, West Region Office
Grand Junction, CO
(970) 245-2120
afoxland@gj.net
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