By SooToday.com Staff
SooToday.com
Wednesday, October 14, 2009

NEWS RELEASE

CANADIAN MEDICAL
ASSOCIATION JOURNAL

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A scientific review of the destroyed documents that Imperial Tobacco Canada sought to conceal

OTTAWA, ON - (October 14) – Documents that Imperial Tobacco Canada attempted to destroy contained high-quality scientific evidence that cigarette smoke was carcinogenic and addictive, found a review of the documents in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).

These studies had important implications for government tobacco-control programs.

This is the first analysis of the 60 scientific reports dating from 1967 to 1984 that were destroyed in Canada in 1992 but stored at British American Tobacco headquarters in the United Kingdom.

“The research standards of the studies reported in the destroyed documents was equal to and, in many cases, exceeded the standards of peer-reviewed scientific research published during the same period,” write Dr. David Hammond, University of Waterloo, and coauthors. “The destroyed documents reveal a vast body of scientific evidence on the health effects of smoking.”

The province of Ontario launched a $50 billion lawsuit against Imperial Tobacco on September 28, 2009.

British Columbia and New Brunswick have also filed lawsuits against the company.

Many of the destroyed documents related to the carcinogenic components of tobacco smoke and to testing for differences between tobacco brands (which differed little in their carcinogenic activity).

Other studies, which looked at the effect of filters, found that rats exposed to smoke through filters had more particles in their lungs than rats with less filtered smoke, counter to the original hypothesis.

As a report by one senior research scientist explained, smokers were inhaling more smoke to get a similar amount of nicotine.

“In fact, epidemiologic data indicates that the rise of ventilated cigarettes in Western countries coincided with an increase in the rate of adenocarcinoma, perhaps because of deeper inhalation patterns from these products,” write the authors.

Eleven of the destroyed documents focused on original research about the effects of second-hand smoke.

These studies, most of which were experiments performed on rats, indicated cellular changes from second-hand smoke.

“The scientists concluded that second-hand smoke was in fact more toxic than mainstream smoke “especially for low delivery cigarettes””, write the authors.

“The destruction of the documents by Imperial Tobacco Canada has direct implications for industry liability and new litigation that is proceeding in Canada,” conclude the authors, noting that “Canadian courts are currently being asked to consider whether the tobacco industry should be liable for the health care costs attributable to smoking.”

Read full text of CMAJ article

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