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Tobacco Control 1998;7:189–192 189 Tob Control: first published as 10.1136/tc.7.2.189 on 1 June 1998. Downloaded from WEB WATCH

Minnesota settlement, documents in mind-boggling numbers, smoke-free Birmingham, fire-safe , Surgeon General’s report, yields, cigars, Tasmania, and a Marlboro Gear spoof

Web Watch follows issues relevant to control on the world wide web. The emphasis is on new sites or new features appearing on the web, including relevant URLs and short descriptions of the material. A web site is available featuring the URL links referenced in this column as well as those referenced in past columns; the URL for that site is: .

Minnesota settlement (BCBSM) provides additional information on the settlement. Details of the historic settlement of the lawsuit Click on “Updates” for summaries of by the Minnesota attorney general (AG) and important courtroom events. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota Before the release of the 39 000 subpoenaed against the are available on documents, BCBSM, a co-plaintiV in the Min- the Minnesota AG’s website. Summary sheets nesota Medicaid liability suit, released these 20 entitled “At a glance”, “Overview”, “Truth”, particularly damaging documents. Unlike “Health”, “Reform”, “Kids”, and “Money” many other sites, a detailed description for have been prepared to assist the viewer in each of these documents is provided. Four cat- understanding various aspects of the egories are available: “ and health”, settlement. “Nicotine addiction”, “Nicotine manipula- Unprecedented document discovery charac- tion”, and “Marketing to kids”.

terised the Minnesota case, and thousands of A “Sampler of the 39 000 documents” http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/ documents obtained by the plaintiVs in this provides additional insight into those formerly litigation are publicly available—many of them protected by attorney/client privilege. The cat- online at sites maintained by the United States egory “Documents sorted by chronology” con- House of Representatives, Blue Cross and Blue tains an extensive list of documents made pub- Shield of Minnesota, and even the tobacco lic during the trial. industry (see below). Finally, a search engine and plaintiV witness *** list are available. 39 000 Documents released on 22 April *** 1998

documents.html> on September 27, 2021 by guest. Protected copyright. In a follow up to the last Web Watch column Thursday, 30 January 1998—Appearing before regarding the release of “more than 800 the United States House Commerce Commit- additional Liggett documents”, the Commerce tee, Philip Morris chairman GeoVrey Bible Committee of the House of Representatives in surprised everyone to win favour in Congress the United States has released 39 000 more for tobacco industry immunity. subpoenaed documents (figure 1) from the “We will immediately take steps to make all now-settled Minnesota lawsuit discussed documents public”, he said, referring to the 33 above. million papers the tobacco industry filed in Subpoenaed from the Council for Tobacco Minnesota’s litigation against Philip Morris Research, Brown and Williamson, Philip Mor- and its allies. ris, RJ Reynolds, Lorillard, and the Tobacco Addressing Lorillard chairman Lawrence Institute after the companies refused to volun- Tisch, committee chairman Thomas Bliley tarily turn them over, these documents are asked, “Mr. Tisch, do you support this believed to be the most damaging ever released decision to release the papers”? against the tobacco industry. “I, I think so. I don’t, I really don’t know too much about it but it, it, it sounds as if ...Ihave *** uh, confidence in Mr Bible’s decision-making Documents from Blue Cross and Blue process and if he thinks it’s the right thing to do Shield of Minnesota I, I aYrm it”, was the startled reply. Web Watch is prepared tobacco resolution web site, which serves correspondence to Supplementing the Minnesota AG’s website, primarily as a gateway to six other sites—each [email protected] Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota under the control of the respective organisation 190 Cannon

Brown and Williamson use another graphics Tob Control: first published as 10.1136/tc.7.2.189 on 1 June 1998. Downloaded from format known as TIFF, which is not readable by most web browsers. A TIFF viewer is available and can be down- loaded from . However, this viewer is only available for Windows 95 and Windows NT. It would seem as though Windows 3.1 users would be out of luck, but an alternative is available by saving the TIFF file to disk and then viewing it oZine using one of the commercially available graphics programs. Many users are reporting problems with the TIFF viewer, particularly if an attempt is made to print the file. Given such considerations it may be preferable to save the files and view/print them oZine regardless of whether the browser is operating under Windows 95. Conspicuously noticeable within the results of searches is an overwhelming abundance of industry press releases and advertisements. It is likely that these documents were not considered to be privileged but were included to impede searches. Slow response time and restrictions on keyword usage coupled with industry inclusion of public documents seriously erode the ability to conduct search attempts, leaving the user frustrated with non-productive attempts to locate documents of significance. One document that was uncovered is a letter confirming the contractual relationship between Philip Morris and the producers of http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/ the movie Superman II for the placement of Marlboro cigarettes in numerous scenes within the movie. To ensure that the letter is easy to find, it is mirrored at along with a textual transcription of the letter.

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Birmingham () campaign

on September 27, 2021 by guest. Protected copyright. Can Birmingham really become the United Figure 1 Web site for the subpoenaed documents of the Commerce Committee of the Kingdom’s first “smoke-free city”? United States House of Representatives. With support from the minister for public and each with independent search mechanisms health, the Birmingham campaign has for locating documents. Those sites are: launched this new and developing web site for • Lorillard the dissemination of information to accom- plish the smoke-free objective. • Brown and Williamson (including the Because all secondary schools in Birming- American Tobacco Company) ham plus many primary schools, most libraries and other public service organisations are con- • Philip Morris nected to the internet, this site is a natural for promoting the Guide to smoke free Birmingham. • RJ Reynolds This extensive compendium of smoke-free establishments features cafés, restaurants, pub- • The Tobacco Institute lic houses, banks, garages, sports facilities, schools, and governmental institutions. • The Council For Tobacco Research— An impressive gallery of anti-tobacco graph- USA, Inc ics is featured. These include both the campaign’s own images and those produced by Philip Morris, Lorillard, and the Tobacco the national freephone (toll-free) Quitline Institute present the documents as standard service (see figure on next page). GIF (graphics) files, which are compatible with An innovative feature of the Birmingham site web browsers. However, RJ Reynolds and is the oVerings of special deals to sports, arts, Web Watch 191

Tobacco Control’s deputy editor Simon Tob Control: first published as 10.1136/tc.7.2.189 on 1 June 1998. Downloaded from Chapman examines the enigma. He finds that these astounding pronouncements are based on a gross misinterpretation of the confidence intervals surrounding the study’s risk estimates (also see page 120 in this issue). The real question, of course, is, “Who is the spin doctor?” *** Fire-safe cigarettes On 27 March 1994, the CBS programme 60 Minutes aired an investigative segment on Philip Morris’ super-secret “Project Hamlet”. The goal of Project Hamlet: to develop a fire-safe that would be acceptable to smokers. Although the tobacco companies say they don’t know how to make a fire-safe cigarette that would be acceptable to consumers, CBS quoted numerous, secret, internal Philip Mor- ris documents showing no significant diVerences between the Project Hamlet proto- type and a Marlboro. Now comes the Texas law firm of Waltman and Grisham representing Vicki Stacks as a friend of Shannon Moore, a three-year-old girl who was burned over 80% of her body by a carelessly discarded cigarette—a horrific injury Figure 2 A poster from the national freephone (toll-free) Quitline service in the United that allegedly could have been prevented had Kingdom, as displayed on the Smoke Free Birmingham web site. Philip Morris simply incorporated its existing

technology to remove the design defects that http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/ and cultural events, an innovative strategy to resulted in this needless disfigurement. attract young people to the site. Depositions of numerous, key Philip Morris Encouragement is also extended to young researchers directly involved in Project Hamlet journalists to get involved in the production of have been posted on this firm’s web site. materials for the site. This introduction to In addition to the depositions, the firm has journalism features the work of teenagers and collected more than 100 000 pages of internal children. From Louise Madden (age 16), documents from Philip Morris and can share “Eternal don’t do it, 4 out of 5 Spice Girls do these documents with legal counsel of any it! SMOKING!” other plaintiV who has filed suit against Philip More information on the Birmingham cam- Morris for injury or damage resulting from a paign appears in the cover essay in this issue of fire allegedly caused by a cigarette Tobacco Control, on pages 112–115.

manufactured by Philip Morris. on September 27, 2021 by guest. Protected copyright. *** The Los Angeles Times has released secret BMJ—medicine and the media industry documents generated by the Tobacco producing fire-safe cigarettes, but also the DATELINE LONDON, 8 March 1998: “Passive industry’s lobbying strategies to counter smoking doesn’t cause cancer—oYcial” legislation that would require cigarettes to be screams the headlines from the Sunday fire safe. Telegraph and the Sunday Times. For the truly *** gullible among Sunday Telegraph readers, the nicotine disclosure report claim was asserted that a study commissioned tional Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) More than 30 years have passed since the produced findings that “could be consistent United States Federal Trade Commission with passive smoke having a protective eVect (FTC) developed the national standard for against lung cancer”. testing the tar and nicotine yields of cigarettes. How could this study of 650 lung cancer Following adoption of the FTC standard, the cases and 1542 controls be promoted as possi- tobacco industry substantially altered the ble protection against lung cancer when, in design of cigarettes, resulting in a significant fact, it found a 16–17% increased risk of lung loss of correlation between tar and nicotine cancer in non-smokers exposed to environ- yields measured by the FTC methodology and mental tobacco smoke? those actually delivered to the smoker. Interjecting himself into this prattle in an The Massachusetts Department of Public article published by the British Medical Journal, Health (MDPH) has established testing 192 Cannon

standards for nicotine yield ratings which description of the serious advertising Tob Control: first published as 10.1136/tc.7.2.189 on 1 June 1998. Downloaded from accurately predict smoker intake. By state law, restrictions Tasmania has imposed against the tobacco manufacturers must file an annual tobacco industry. report based on MDPH testing standards for Equally serious are the sanctions imposed each brand of tobacco product sold in Massa- against selling tobacco products to children. chusetts. These standards have revealed nico- The text of the relevant part of this tobacco tine yield levels about twice as high as those control legislation is online at indicated by the FTC method. . Eighty-five cigarette brands have been tested by MDPH. A startlingly finding—no brands *** tested fell into the low or nicotine-free classifi- 1998 Report of the Surgeon cation! The report is available at the above General—Tobacco use among US URL, which includes a detailed analysis of racial/ethnic minority groups nicotine yield testing, nicotine content of Available online in PDF format, this Surgeon nicotine yield ratings. General’s report addresses patterns of tobacco *** use, health consequences, industry marketing Cigars: Health eVects and trends and other factors influencing tobacco use, and members of the four major American In the most scathing indictment ever issued racial/ethnic minority populations: African against cigars, the National Cancer Institute has Americans, American Indians and Alaska released a report saying that cigars can be just as Natives, Asian Americans and Pacific lethal as cigarettes, causing cancers of the lip, Islanders, and Hispanics. tongue, mouth, throat, larynx, oesophagus, and The executive summary of the report is lung, as well as chronic obstructive pulmonary reproduced in this issue of Tobacco Control,on disease and coronary heart disease. pages 198–209. Donald R Shopland, who coordinates NCI’s *** smoking and tobacco control programme, Marlboro Gear spoof ranks the importance of this report as similar to the original report of the Surgeon General in Fade to Black is an online comedy magazine 1964 on cigarettes. “This is the most compre- that made its debut last year. Featuring satirical hensive assessment of what we know about the subjects, the magazine’s articles are guaranteed

health risks and trends of cigar smoking in this to be considered oVensive by at least someone http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/ country,” he said. in the public eye. The tobacco industry and its The press release is available at supporters are no exception. . promotional campaign, the Marlboro Political The health eVects of cigar smoking are the Buyer’s Guide is a spoof on the tobacco indus- focus of one of the eight chapters making up try’s ability to buy the influence of politicians NCI’s new monograph, which is entitled and organisations. Cigars: health eVects and trends. To access a Using a formula derived by averaging out the menu to the eight chapters go to price of an item in a Marlboro catalogue and . boro Miles needed to purchase it, Fade to Black The monograph is in PDF format, whose determined that the retail value of a Marlboro total file size is 4700 kilobytes. Although the Mile is approximately US$0.05. on September 27, 2021 by guest. Protected copyright. individual chapters are smaller and can be The formula was then used to determine the individually accessed, it is probably better to number of Marlboro Miles required to buy the start with the background information influence of Bob Dole, Jesse Helms, the Ameri- available as a question and answer series at can Red Cross, and the law firm that attempted