Anne Landman's Collection
Presentation to Philip Morris Board
Abstract
In this brief 1973 speech, Philip Morris' Vice President of Research and Development Helmut Wakeham describes the intensifying pressure on the company to develop a "safe cigaret." He tells PM's Board that the European tobacco industry "has agreed that smoking is harmful and is hard at work on developing 'less hazardous' products," and adds that "We are working to be in a position to design a cigaret which will meet 'less hazardous' specifications if they are ever imposed on us..."
The statement that Philip Morris would only make their product safer if forced to reveals an alarmingly cavalier corporate attitude towards public health. Even though the company's director of research and development noted that his colleagues overseas had admitted that "smoking is harmful," the company's plan was to alter their products only if requirements to do so were imposed upon them by an outside force, such as government, or by market pressures like competition.
Fields
- Notes
This document was used as a trial exhibit in Florida, Missouri, Minnesota and Texas.
- Quotes
Our most important defensive weapons are in the category of product development. Here the company and industry are facing two clearly discernable trends, both of them arising from the smoking and health controversy. The first of these is the continuing demand to make cigarets milder and milder, in effect to lover tar and nicotine delivery per cigaret. Milder cigaretss have lower taste impace, and our challenge is to maintain and improve customer acceptance in the face of this trend.
The second trend is the intensifying pressure to develop a "safe" cigaret. The European tobacco industry has agreed that smoking is harmful and is hard at work to develop "less hazardous" products. Development and marketing of such cigarets by European firms will put great pressure on Philip Morris International to do likewise. Once International markets a "less hazardous" cigaret, her American counterpart will be able to do no less. And it is probably only a matter of timing since the tobacco program at the National Cancer Institute is also aimed at the development of cigaret prototypes which they will define as "less hazardous."
The definition of cigaret "safeness" centers around a battery of bio-assay tests, currently with animals but eventually with humans...We are working to be in a position to design a cigaret which will meet "less hazardous" specifications if they are ever imposed on us and at the same time to make a product which is attractive to the smoker. I am pleased to report that we already have a number of such prototypes on our shelves, with more to come in the future...
- Company
- Philip Morris
- Author
- Wakeham, Helmut R. R., Ph.D. (PM R&D VP)Vice President and Director of Research & Development, Philip Morris
- Recipient
- Philip Morris Board, 1973
- Region
- United States
- Named Organization
- National Cancer Institute NCIDivision of Cancer Prevention and Control, National Cancer Institute located in Rockville, MD
- RJR, R.J. Reynolds
- Litigation
- Flag/Trial Exhibit P-0331
- Flag/Trial Exhibit P-1377
- Morm/Trial Exhibit
- Stmn/Produced
- Stmn/Trial Exhibit P-18044
- Txag/Trial Exhibit P-1377
- Txag/Trial Exhibit P-331
- Flag/Trial Exhibit P-1377
- Named Person
- Goldsmith, Clifford Henry (B&H (1953), PM Chief of Operations ('65) Pres of PM, Inc. (')1953 Benson & Hedges. 1965 Philip Morris USA Chief of Operations. 1969-73 President of Philip Morris, Inc. 1978 PM Chief Executive. Served on Tobacco Institute Executive Committee, 1979.
- Type
- Spch, Speech/Presentation
- Subject
- safer cigarette
Document Images
