Daily Doc: PM, Nov 1, 1972: 'Sounds like cigarettes are addicting...'
Daily Doc: 'Sounds like cigarettes are addicting...'
Title: Electromyographic Studies of Muscle Relaxation in Smokers
PM, Nov 1, 1972
Bates #: 1001801446/1447
September 3, 2000
This 1972 Philip Morris (PM) internal memo, Electromyographic Studies of Muscle Relaxation in Smokers, establishes the fact that PM knew that cigarettes were addicting way back in 1972, fully 22 years before the '94 congressional hearings wherein the tobacco CEOs testified that they didn't believe nicotine was addicting. This PM employee states quite frankly that:
"What it sounds like at the moment is that cigarets are addicting and the reaction of the inveterate cigaret smoker is like that of any drug addict."Also note the PM employee's understanding that his company lacked a reputation for "'intellectual honesty and integrity" when it came to scientific research, as he intimates that tobacco industry-financing for the study would have to be hidden from the public view if they intended to "market" the results of this proposed study:
"The market promotion value of this work, assuming it is valid, may be negated by the fact that it was done in an independent institute financed by a cigaret manufacturer or by the tobacco industry. Only if the work were done under the auspices of an institution with a well-established reputation for intellectual honesty and integrity would this be worthwhile."
CITATION
Title: Electromyographic Studies of Muscle Relaxation in Smokers
Type of Document: Memo
Author: R. Fagan
Recipient: H. Wakeham
Date: 19721101
Site: Philip Morris tobacco Company document site http://www.pmdocs.com/
Page Count 2
Bates No. 1001801446/1447
URL: http://www.pmdocs.com/getallimg.asp?DOCID=1001801446/1447
Litigation Usage: None yet
Found Using Search Criteria: N/A (found this one a long time ago and can't remember)
QUOTES
Brudny and Levy [of Bellevue Hospital] had noticed in their treatment of patients whom they were trying to train to relax voluntary muscles that smokers were not able to relax unless they were allowed to smoke....
To pursue the phenomenon of muscle relaxation under the influence os smoking, the group at Bellevue would like to be subsidized....and equipped to study about 200 people.
In my opinion the request is premature...What it sounds like at the moment is that cigarets are addicting and the reaction of the inveterate cigaret smoker is like that of any drug addict. I should like to see some preliminary work to validate the initial observation....
...The market promotion value of this work, assuming it is valid, may be negated by the fact that it was done in an independent institute financed by a cigaret manufacturer or by the tobacco industry. Only if the work were done under the auspices of an institution with a well-established reputation for intellectual honesty and integrity would this be worthwhile.
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