Filters Give False Hope

Abstract

* MORE THAN 42 million filter-tip cigarette smokers are basking in a false sense of security, a report from a leading cancer research laboratory indicates. Not one of eight leading cigarette brands tested really protects a smoker from possible lung cancer and other diseases, Dr. George E. Moore, director of Roswell Park Memorial Institute, Buffalo, N.Y., said. Pall Mall cigarettes were found by Roswell Park researchers to be the poorest of the brands tested for filtering out tar and nicotine. True filter cigarettes, a new brand being test marketed in the New York City area, were found the most effective. Spokesmen for the American Tobacco Company, which manufactures Pall Malls, told SCIENCE SERVICE in a telephone interview that Roswell Park's figures were based on a pearand-apple comparison, and did not jibe with those at the cigarette company's laboratory. The Ogg Cambridge filter method for testing the amount of tar and nicotine in filtered cigarette smoke, endorsed by the Federal Trade Commission, is used by the Pall Mall investigators. They use two sets of analyses. One refers to milligrams of tar and nicotine per cigarette; the other refers to milligrams per 100 milliliters of smoke. Pall Mall figures show less tar and nicotine than the Roswell Park report. Dr. Moore said it was alarming to note that Pall Mall filter cigarettes pass more tar and nicotine on to the smoker than do the regular Pall Malls without filters. Two other brands, Chesterfields and Lucky Strikes, were found to be no more effective in reducing tar 'and nicotine intake when filtered than when unfiltered. Ranking between True and Pall Mall cigarettes in the amount of tar and nicotine passed through filters were Kent, Marlboro, Winston, Lark, Salem, and Chesterfield in order of increasing amounts. Tar makes up 40% of tobacco ingredients, and a number of reports have implicated the coal tar benzopyrene as one of the most potent of all cancercausing agents now known. On the other hand, many scientists do not admit that tar and nicotine cause lung cancer and other ailments, such as emphysema and cardiovascular difficulties. The Council for Tobacco ResearchU.S.A., for example, is spending considerable money for research that would pinpoint exact ingredients in tobacco smoke that are harmful to health. The American Medical Association is cooperating with the tobacco industry in research to ferret out the truth about statistics on disease and death associated with smoking. Dr. Moore said that the tobacco industry apparently realizes that the public wants safer cigarettes. is evident in the increase in filter-tip cigarette production from two percent of the total cigarette output in 1952 to 64.7 in 1965. This means that approximately 42,055,000 of the estimated 65 million cigarette smokers in this country are now smoking filter cigarettes in an effort to protect themselves.