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RE: Joint Meeting on ETS - London, England 

These remarkable minutes are from a 1988 meeting of cigarette manufacturers from the U.S., United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, Canada and Japan who met to discuss global strategies for dealing with the industry's greatest threat: the secondhand smoke issue.

The minutes contain a fascinating discussion wherein a representative of the German cigarette industry, Dr. Franz Adlkofer, departs from the industry's established route of promoting global deceit on the secondhand smoke issue and urges the industry representatives to adopt a more responsible course:

During the meeting, Dr. Adlkofer questioned the industry's continuing creation of it's own "marketable science." In a stunning departure from typical industry plotting, Dr. Adlkofer stated that what the industry was really seeking was "good public relations material, not good science."

Dr. Adlkofer further said that "real science" would be "essential if the industry was to prevail on the ETS issue."

Furthermore, Adlkofer "refused to endorse a situation in which scientific research is guided by public relations needs."

Adlkofer questioned the wisdom of the industry's present course on the ETS (environmental tobacco smoke) issue and urged the industry instead to concentrate on identifying a threshold level for risk of ETS exposure.

This controversial suggestion caused "widespread disagreement" among the meeting's participants. . . .

Don Hoel summarized this session by noting that the reports demonstrated the need for "marketable research," which he defined as "good science that is communicable to persons who will benefit from it."

Don Hoel introduced this session by reiterating that the sgientific and public affairs elements of the industry must work together if the ETS issue is to be successfully addressed. Only through cooperation can the industry adequately deal with changes in public attitude.

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