快猫短视频

THE tobacco industry has deliberately misled smokers into thinking they are
smoking cigarettes that contain lower levels of tar and nicotine than they
really do, secret company documents reveal.

Rather than alter cigarettes to meet 1990 European Union limits on tar and
nicotine, makers changed how they measure these substances, say Stella Bialous
and Derek Yach of the World Health Organization. They say the companies were
able to do this because they effectively control the tobacco committee of the
International Organization for Standardization (ISO), which sets such tests.

What鈥檚 more, there鈥檚 a danger that this could happen again if nothing is
done, Bialous and Yach believe. An EU directive passed last month will impose a
new limit of 10 milligrams tar, 1 mg nicotine and 10 mg carbon monoxide per
cigarette by 2004.

Bialous and Yach found evidence of the ploys used by tobacco companies by
searching for keywords in 40 million pages of industry documents made public
after court cases in the US. Tar and nicotine content are measured with a
鈥渟moking machine鈥�. It鈥檚 known that smokers inhale far more nicotine and tar than
these machines register, but the documents show for the first time how the
industry deliberately manipulated the standards.

To give just one example, a memo from Manuel Bourlas, a senior manager at
Philip Morris, reveals how the company got round the 1990 EU directive limiting
tar to 15 mg: 鈥淎s we knew this was going to happen as early as 1988, we began to
develop a strategy with which to react . . . The three year effort results in a
new method which reduces the smoke delivery results by about 1 mg at the 16 mg
level. The Marlboro sold in the EEC was initially delivering about 15.5 mg. When
the new system was implemented, the deliveries were around 14.5 mg, but
remember, no product change ever took place . . . 鈥�

鈥淭hat told me it is all really for show,鈥� says Bialous. 鈥淚t illustrates how
useless these regulations are for protecting the public.鈥�

A 1990 memo from Philip Morris employee J. B. Boder to Bourlas reveals more
about the strategy: 鈥淭here are two international organizations controlled by the
industry: CORESTA and ISO . . . The best way to work with these two
organizations is to do all the technical work within CORESTA and then have it
endorsed by ISO.鈥�

It is no secret that CORESTA, the Cooperation Centre for Scientific Research
Relative to Tobacco, is run by the tobacco industry. But ISO committees should
include representatives from governments, regulatory agencies and other parties.
Yet nearly everyone on the ISO tobacco committee comes from the industry.
鈥淓ighty per cent of the members are in tobacco industry labs,鈥� admits
Fran莽ois Jacob, secretary general of CORESTA. 鈥淚 can鈥檛 say we have much
conflict with them.鈥�

This lack of opposition means ISO accepts virtually without question the
standards suggested by CORESTA, says Yach. 鈥淭obacco companies have got the
standards they wanted for years.鈥�

Jacob denies that standards were changed to get round the regulations. 鈥淲e
were updating a method that had gone in several directions,鈥� he argues. 鈥淪moking
standards have never been intended to measure either intake by the smoker or any
health claim. Their purpose is purely comparison.鈥�

鈥淚t would be surprising if cigarette manufacturers did not seek to influence
the work of the committee,鈥� says Roger Frost of ISO. But he denies they are in
complete control of the committee.