CARING FOR THE CUSTOMER

A damning new report claims that tobacco giants possessed the technology to
make cigarette smoking safer, but didn't use it

CIGARETTE manufacturers abandoned dozens of technologies that could
have reduced the death toll from their products, according to a new
report from two leading British anti-smoking groups. It claims that
tobacco barons feared that marketing a "safer" cigarette would amount
to an admission that smoking is dangerous.

The report, from Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) and the Imperial
Cancer Research Fund, details 58 patented methods for cutting levels
of toxic chemicals in cigarette smoke. None has yet seen the light of
day.

These include a catalytic method to remove carbon monoxide and nitric
oxide from smoke (US 4182348), registered by British American Tobacco
(BAT) in 1980. Philip Morris filed a similar patent (US 4301817) in
1981, which also describes a process to cut levels of hydrogen cyanide.

The cost of implementing these technologies may have been one of the
reasons they were abandoned. But ASH believes concerns about the legal
difficulties in admitting the dangers posed by existing products were
far more significant.

"Marketing a cigarette on the basis it had less of a tasteless gas
like carbon monoxide would effectively mean admitting the product was
bad for you," says Clive Bates, director of ASH. "Then you would move
into the area of product liability with the smoker who has had heart
disease made worse by inhaling carbon monoxide."

Although cigarette manufacturers have promoted lower-tar brands for
decades, Bates says that the industry has been careful not to claim
these are safer. Instead, they have been marketed as tasting milder.

Bates also points to a confidential memo written in 1986 by Patrick
Sheehy, then chief executive of BAT, uncovered last year during
litigation in the US. It states: "In attempting to develop a 'safe'
cigarette you are, by implication, in danger of being interpreted as
accepting that the current product is unsafe and this is not a
position I think we should take."

Chris Proctor, head of science and regulatory affairs at BAT's London
headquarters, disputes Bates's claims. He says that many of the
technologies were not developed because they might in theory increase
levels of other toxic chemicals. But Proctor could not confirm whether
BAT had conducted tests to exclude this possibility.

It is unclear to what extent the shelved patents could have cut
premature deaths. But Bates says: "If you could make cigarettes 10 per
cent less dangerous, that's 12 000 lives saved each year in the UK
alone."

Among the most dangerous substances in cigarette smoke are carcinogens
called nitrosamines. The new report lists six patented processes for
reducing or eliminating these chemicals from cigarette smoke. The
tobacco giants have never implemented any of them, but a small company
called Star Scientific of Petersburg, Virginia, hopes to introduce
nitrosaminefree cigarettes next year. In 1998, the company patented a
method (US 5803081) of microwaving tobacco to kill the bacteria that
create the right chemical environment for the production of
nitrosamines.

"If their process is effective, it should be applied to cigarette
manufacturing every where," says John Slade, a specialist in nicotine
addiction at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in
Newark. "But it might require legislation."

The report will be seized upon by sick smokers who are trying to sue

tobacco firms for damages. They have been experiencing mixed fortunes.
Last week in Britain, for example, 46 smokers abandoned their action
against Gallaher and Imperial Tobacco after a judge ruled they had
waited too long after contracting lung cancer before launching their
suit.

But Richard Daynard, a law professor at Northeastern University in
Boston and founder of the Tobacco Products Liability Project advocacy
group, believes the report could precipitate further lawsuits: "The
companies knew how to make changes that would mean many fewer deaths.
But they continued to make cigarettes as they are. This is a criminal
level of negligence."

Proctor rejects this charge: "I firmly believe that BAT has been very
responsible." Philip Morris would not comment on the report.