Tobacco company CEOs lying to the US Congress in 1994 that nicotine is not addictive

For today’s post, let’s hear it from the Tobacco Action Committee of the American Thoracic Society (ATS).

The Committee is charged with organizing and coordinating the Society’s tobacco control activities which will include…activities with the ultimate goal of minimizing the impact of tobacco on morbidity and mortality worldwide. The Committee will strive to enhance the ability of the ATS to participate more fully in the investigation of the root causes of tobacco use; treatment of nicotine dependence; and advocacy efforts to eliminate its use. (Emphasis added.)

First they say their ‘ultimate goal’ (the word ‘ultimate’ is redundant’) is to minimize the impact of tobacco on morbidity and mortality (illness and death). And by the way, do they want to participate more, or participate fully, in the investigations?

Then, as they verbosely put it, (paraphrasing slightly) they will ‘strive to enhance the ability to participate in advocacy to eliminate tobacco use.’ Perhaps they mean to say, ‘The committee will investigate the cause of tobacco use and strive to eliminate it.’

So, what do they want to do: minimize the effects of tobacco or eliminate its use?

In either case, it’s unclear how treatment of nicotine dependence fits in here. If tobacco use is eliminated then the treatment of nicotine dependence will take care of itself. Remissness in the writing is also shown by the plural use of ‘root cause’. The root cause of something means the fundamental reason for the occurrence of a problem, so by definition there is only one.

This uncertainty about what they are trying to achieve is also reflected in the widely reported comment of Dr Harold Farber, Chair of the ATS Tobacco Action Committee, to the news that on 26 November 2017 the tobacco industry has to make ‘corrective statements’ in the US media, of the following kind:

  • Smoking kills, on average, 1,200 Americans every day
  • More people die every year from smoking than from murder, AIDS, suicide, drugs, car crashes, and alcohol combined.
  • Smoking causes heart disease, emphysema, acute myeloid leukemia, and cancer of the mouth, esophagus, larynx, lung, stomach, kidney, bladder, and pancreas
  • Smoking also causes reduced fertility, low birth weight in newborns, and cancer of the cervix
  • Smoking is highly addictive. Nicotine is the addictive drug in toacco.
  • Cigarette companies intentionally designed cigarettes with enough nicotine to create and sustain addiction
  • It’s not easy to quit
  • When you smoke the nicotine actually changes the brain – that’s why quitting is so hard
  • Etc.

Dr Farber also says: ‘This is the first time tobacco companies are acknowledging the truth to the general public: tobacco is a product that is hightly addictive and as a direct consequence of its design, kills people when used exactly as intended.’

Give him a big hand for pointing out the obvious.

The origin of this dates back to 2006 when the US District Court of Columbia found that several major cigarette manufacturers were guilty of racketeering and misleading the public, and publication of these statements was part of the punishment imposed on them.

The cigarette companies resisted this measure because, as they not unreasonably pointed out, they didn’t want to have to brand themselves as liars – even though they are.

Apart from that, what is point of publishing these statements? Is it to treat Big Tobacco like a naughty schoolchild being made to write out a hundred lines? Is it to tell the public stuff they don’t know? Is it to try to make smokers quit through fear? (I would disagree with the statement that it’s not easy to quit.) One may speculate on all this but I think it misses the point.

How about calling for the US government to be brought to account for knowingly allowing a product to be sold which:

  • Kills, on average, 1,200 Americans every day – more than die every year from smoking than from murder, AIDS, suicide, drugs, car crashes, and alcohol combined
  • Causes heart disease, emphysema, acute myeloid leukemia, and cancer of the mouth, esophagus, larynx, lung, stomach, kidney, bladder, and pancreas
  • Also causes reduced fertility, low birth weight in newborns, and cancer of the cervix
  • Etc.

Further, I would seek to force the government to issue a corrective statement that it failed in its duty to protect the public by leaving it up to the consciences of those decent people who run tobacco companies to put themselves out of business.

Text © Gabriel Symonds