Tobacco memos depict assault on researchers

  • 28/04/1998

  • Asian Wall Street Journal (Hong Kong)

Determined to keep efforts about second hand smoke dangers from mushrooming, the tobacco industry mobilized a counter attack in the mid-1980s to systematically discredit any researcher claiming perils from passive smoke. Internal memos among the 39,000 released last week paint a picture of an industry on the defensive, facing the most explosive assault on its image since cigarettes were linked to cancer two decades earlier.