Big Tobacco knew radioactive particles in cigarettes posed cancer risk but kept quiet

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/cigarette-smoke-contains-radioactive-211108.aspx

Big Tobacco knew radioactive particles in cigarettes posed cancer risk but kept quiet

By Kim Irwin September 28, 2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yFHKE3kRDA

Tobacco companies knew that cigarette smoke contained radioactive alpha particles for more than four decades and developed "deep and intimate" knowledge of these particles' cancer-causing potential, but they deliberately kept their findings from the public, according to a new study by UCLA researchers.

The analysis of dozens of previously unexamined internal tobacco industry documents, made available in 1998 as the result of a legal settlement, reveals that the industry was aware of cigarette radioactivity some five years earlier than previously thought and that tobacco companies, concerned about the potential lung cancer risk, began in-depth investigations into the possible effects of radioactivity on smokers as early as the 1960s.

"The documents show that the industry was well aware of the presence of a radioactive substance in tobacco as early as 1959," the authors write. "Furthermore, the industry was not only cognizant of the potential 'cancerous growth' in the lungs of regular smokers, but also did quantitative radiobiological calculations to estimate the long-term lung radiation absorption dose of ionizing alpha particles emitted from cigarette smoke."

The study, published online Sept. 27 in Nicotine & Tobacco Research, the peer-reviewed journal of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco, adds to a growing body of research detailing the industry's knowledge of cigarette smoke radioactivity and its efforts to suppress that information.

…

[Warpy]

1. I remember when that information first came out in 1959

and how many biochemists who knew what ionizing radiation did to the human body quit smoking overnight.

Yeah, they've kept it hushed up for decades, focusing on tars and other internal pollutants. However, the information was out there.

[Scuba]

2. Good thing we have Repukes, or else Big Tobacco wouldn't be able to poison people for profit. n/t