Cancer from Smoking; the 93 million pages of the tobacco lawsuit. (surgery, lung)

[Mike from back east]

Story in today's WaPo about the warehouse with 93 million pages of documents from the massive landmark legal case that proved how badly big tobacco was lying to the public.

Here are some excerpts:

"...in the Minnesota Tobacco Document Depository, lie the remains of 27 years of legal cases against Big Tobacco. There are trial transcripts, exhibits, images of the Marlboro Man and Joe Camel, a diseased lung in preserving liquid, stories of smokers’ deaths, and secrets that, once revealed, helped end the tobacco industry’s dominance in the cultural landscape of the United States. The warehouse, open to the public for 23 years, will close on Tuesday, ending an unprecedented court-ordered, industry-funded central collection of the legacy of a product that, according to the surgeon general, has killed more than 20 million Americans and continues to kill more than 400,000 a year.

The Reynolds scientists discovered that by adding ammonia to the tobacco blend, Marlboro’s maker raised alkalinity and created “free” nicotine, which is rapidly absorbed and instantly perceived as a nicotine kick: “All evidence indicates that the relatively high smoke pH . . . is deliberate and controlled.”

Richard Hurt, a now-retired Mayo Clinic addiction expert who testified for the state of Minnesota, remembers shouting profanities that startled his wife as he read the documents at home. “We knew that nicotine was addicting,” he told me. “But we did not realize that this cigarette was the most sophisticated drug delivery device that’s ever been invented to get nicotine to the brain within five heartbeats . . . faster than treating it intravenously. This thing looks so harmless, the little white thing that you put in your mouth and puff. . . . It was criminal what they had done to my patients, who, unbeknownst to them, had become addicted to a product that was specially designed to do nothing more than to get them addicted and to kill them.”


I never smoked. My 3 sisters and father did. Cancer of the tongue killed my father at age 80; he smoked Pall Malls for decades. My oldest sister died of lung cancer at 70 even though she quit smoking at least 15 years before it took her. My 2nd oldest sister quit many years ago but had a quad bypass 15 years ago. My little sister beat breast cancer 8 years ago and still smokes about 10 cigarettes a day. My Uncle George smoked heavily and died of throat cancer at age 53; his throat closed up and he only weighed 88 pounds when he died as a ward of the state.

Most of the documents have been put on-line by UCSF.

[Roselvr]

Originally Posted by Mike from back east

Story in today's WaPo about the warehouse with 93 million pages of documents from the massive landmark legal case that proved how badly big tobacco was lying to the public.

Here are some excerpts:

"...in the Minnesota Tobacco Document Depository, lie the remains of 27 years of legal cases against Big Tobacco. There are trial transcripts, exhibits, images of the Marlboro Man and Joe Camel, a diseased lung in preserving liquid, stories of smokers’ deaths, and secrets that, once revealed, helped end the tobacco industry’s dominance in the cultural landscape of the United States. The warehouse, open to the public for 23 years, will close on Tuesday, ending an unprecedented court-ordered, industry-funded central collection of the legacy of a product that, according to the surgeon general, has killed more than 20 million Americans and continues to kill more than 400,000 a year.

The Reynolds scientists discovered that by adding ammonia to the tobacco blend, Marlboro’s maker raised alkalinity and created “free” nicotine, which is rapidly absorbed and instantly perceived as a nicotine kick: “All evidence indicates that the relatively high smoke pH . . . is deliberate and controlled.”

Richard Hurt, a now-retired Mayo Clinic addiction expert who testified for the state of Minnesota, remembers shouting profanities that startled his wife as he read the documents at home. “We knew that nicotine was addicting,” he told me. “But we did not realize that this cigarette was the most sophisticated drug delivery device that’s ever been invented to get nicotine to the brain within five heartbeats . . . faster than treating it intravenously. This thing looks so harmless, the little white thing that you put in your mouth and puff. . . . It was criminal what they had done to my patients, who, unbeknownst to them, had become addicted to a product that was specially designed to do nothing more than to get them addicted and to kill them.”


Most of the documents have been put on-line by UCSF.

Thanks for posting. I've been smoking since about the age of 10, 1976. It was cool to smoke, well that's what all the cool kids did. I've been trying to quit for a few years. I'm stalled on half a pack. I'm trying to do it on my own, without patches because they're expensive. My insurance doesn't cover them. They should if they want people to stop smoking.

I'm not surprised by any of it. I know all of the risks, that smoking can kill me without having to go there to read any of it. Kids these days would be stupid to start. Make that kids from at least 20 or 30 years ago when they started proving that smoking caused whatever. It stuns me to see kids actually smoking these days because who is buying it for them? I believe you have to be 21 in NJ to legally buy them.

Originally Posted by Mike from back east

I never smoked. My 3 sisters and father did. Cancer of the tongue killed my father at age 80; he smoked Pall Malls for decades. My oldest sister died of lung cancer at 70 even though she quit smoking at least 15 years before it took her. My 2nd oldest sister quit many years ago but had a quad bypass 15 years ago. My little sister beat breast cancer 8 years ago and still smokes about 10 cigarettes a day. My Uncle George smoked heavily and died of throat cancer at age 53; his throat closed up and he only weighed 88 pounds when he died as a ward of the state.

My hub had tonsil cancer in 2009. Back then, they knew his cancer was not from smoking or drinking. his was from HPV. I used to go to oral cancer message boards, most of their cancers were also caused by HPV, not smoking or drinking.

I'm sorry for the loss of your loved ones but their cancers also may not have been from smoking. Even your father who died from tongue cancer, it could have been HPV too unless it was recent, they tested it. HPV is a sexually transmitted disease that can lie dormant for over 50 years until it wakes up and rears it's ugly head. Most who had HPV+ cancer had recently had some sort of health trauma such as being sick, surgery or some sort of accident. It's true for my hub too.

For women who's husbands had HPV+ cancer, they need to be checked for HPV by their gyno. There's no HPV test for males. It doesn't always cause cancer if your body is healthy enough to fight it.

HPV and other things can also cause lung cancers.

Thankfully we have great testing these days. Hopefully someone is tracking the oral and lung cancers that usually get blamed on cigarettes so that people start knowing exactly what could cause that cancer and where. I'm not saying cigarettes aren't to blame for cancers, I think they're getting too much of the blame. People diagnosed with either have a bad stigma attached because people assume they smoked, even when they didn't like Dana Reeves, Superman's wife who died from lung cancer many years ago but also never smoked in her life. People assumed second hand smoke but we really don't know that for a fact.

[Mike from back east]

Thank you for the great post.

One thing I've learned over the years is that Radon gas can cause lung cancer in people, whether they smoke or not. There are lots of areas of the country where Radon gas is an issue, especially in Colorado where we lived for 11 years. New homes there come with a Radon gas report and for existing homes there are ways to mitigate Radon for a few thousand dollars. Our home builder furnished us the report for our property and we also had our house tested after we moved in.

HPV is a tricky one. It causes cervical cancers as well as oral cancers. There's a vaccine for HPV, and the younger one gets it the better.

Lungs are susceptible to various things that end up killing a person. I knew a lot of guys back in Baltimore whose father's worked in shipyards there during WW-2 and many of those guys handled tons of asbestos to wrap the pipes and boilers in those Liberty Ships and Victory Ships. They were practically bathed in loose asbestos all day long. The guys told me their fathers rarely lived to 65 and of course back in those days it seemed that everyone smoked. All of my older generation did, except for my Mom and one Aunt. I have old Railroad magazines from the 1930s with ads on the back cover for Camel cigarettes which bragged how Camels aided digestion after a meal and how more doctors smoked Camels than any other brand. My wife's family doctor was a smoker, smoked in the office where we visited him in the mid 1970s; he developed lung cancer and since he knew what lay ahead for him he shot himself.

Some of my father's pals at the railroad shops handled a lot of asbestos which was used on the boilers of steam locomotives and the steam pipes that ran the length of the passenger trains as those cars were steam heated. I recall my dad reading the obit pages in the Baltimore Sun every day and every so often he'd look up and say " _ _ _ _ died, he worked in the _ _ _ _ shop."

Then there's black lung that the miner's got.

It seems there's no shortage of ways to die.

[Roselvr]

Originally Posted by Mike from back east

Thank you for the great post.

One thing I've learned over the years is that Radon gas can cause lung cancer in people, whether they smoke or not. There are lots of areas of the country where Radon gas is an issue, especially in Colorado where we lived for 11 years. New homes there come with a Radon gas report and for existing homes there are ways to mitigate Radon for a few thousand dollars. Our home builder furnished us the report for our property and we also had our house tested after we moved in.

HPV is a tricky one. It causes cervical cancers as well as oral cancers. There's a vaccine for HPV, and the younger one gets it the better.

Lungs are susceptible to various things that end up killing a person. I knew a lot of guys back in Baltimore whose father's worked in shipyards there during WW-2 and many of those guys handled tons of asbestos to wrap the pipes and boilers in those Liberty Ships and Victory Ships. They were practically bathed in loose asbestos all day long. The guys told me their fathers rarely lived to 65 and of course back in those days it seemed that everyone smoked. All of my older generation did, except for my Mom and one Aunt. I have old Railroad magazines from the 1930s with ads on the back cover for Camel cigarettes which bragged how Camels aided digestion after a meal and how more doctors smoked Camels than any other brand. My wife's family doctor was a smoker, smoked in the office where we visited him in the mid 1970s; he developed lung cancer and since he knew what lay ahed for him he shot himself.

Some of my father's pals at the railroad shops handled a lot of asbestos which was used on the boilers of steam locomotives and the steam pipes that ran the length of the passenger trains as those cars were steam heated. I recall my dad reading the obit pages in the Baltimore Sun every day and every so often he'd look up and say " _ _ _ _ died, he worked in the _ _ _ _ shop."

Then there's black lung that the miner's got.

It seems there's no shortage of ways to die.

You told me stuff I didn't know. I'm born in 1960's, I remember smoking ads, free things like T-shirts, frisbees all with the cigarette names on them. I have a cool camel key chain that has a pack with 20 cigarettes with water where you try to get the cigarettes in the pack. All sorts of branded cigarette lighters, ashtrays.

I remember people smoking everywhere, even in the hospital and airplane. I remember when they stopped allowing it, then the only place left was bars but they did away with that too in NJ.

There are a few types of HPV that cause those cancers, that vaccine doesn't stop all of them. My daughter did not get it. Some people that had HPV cancers were offered the vaccine. It was too new to give my daughter back in 2009. She can't have it due to health issues anyway where the vaccine may injure her. Everyone has to weigh their risk. I don't agree with giving it to kids who aren't having sex yet. The package insert can be scary to read.

[Mike from back east]

Here's an example of Camel ads from the 1930s.

The military used to sell alcohol and tobacco in "Class 6" stores which made it cheap to drink and smoke by offering these items to soldiers without the federal tax portion. Not sure what they do today, but smoking and drinking used to endemic in the Army. The mess kits during WW-2 included a few cigarettes.

[Roselvr]

Those Camel ads are pretty funny! Calling Camel a "fresh" cigarette lol

I see it has every generation. I'm in the 1980's, they gave up using men, brought in Camel Joe until 1997. I guess that Camel cigarette pack key chain game is from the 80's.

I had to look up Marlboro. I didn't know it was targeted as a ladies cigarette, they showed dark lipstick on the models, even made a grease proof ivory tip filter so that lip stick stains wouldn't smear on it then they made a red version to not show lipstick on it lol In the 50's they started targeting men.

In a 1931 Camel ad, it says the cigarette filters out peppery dust, whatever that is, says they're germ proof LMAO Even more shocking, they were claiming it helped people with lung issues like asthma, hay-fever, flu and shortness of breath

I found a few links that have various cigarette ads, doctors saying how beneficial it was to smoke, some celebrities like Lucy Ball, some kids and babies which was pretty shocking to see. A baby saying mom, how could you afford not to smoke One was a father's day ad where they were gifting dad carton's of cigarettes. Another says not to give to their kids unless they're 6 years old



Outrageous vintage cigarette ads

1931 ad, an ear, nose and throat doctor holding a "germ-proof" pack of Camel cigarettes attests to the brand's ability to filter the "peppery dust . . . that makes you cough."

1881 Wilcox & Co. ad for Cigares De Joy makes the claim that they benefit those suffering from "asthma, cough bronchitis, hay-fever, influenza, and shortness of breath."

1890 ad for Dr. Batty's Asthma Cigarettes warns against administering them to your kids unless they are at least six years old.

1930 ad, Dr. G. Edward Roehrig, a Los Angeles physician, endorsed Thomson's Mell-o-well cigars as a "health cigar" that would remove such irritants as "nicotines, glycerides, albuminoids and carbons -- dangerous when used to excess by those who are physically below par." - Dr. Roehrig died in 1938 from lung cancer.

1951 Marlboro ad both pours on the kitsch with a cute baby, and lays on the parental guilt ("Just one question, Mom: Can you afford not to smoke?").

No cigarette hangover whatever that is lol 1951 Philip Morris ad targeting female smokers asks supporters of the nascent women's liberation movement to think (and smoke) for themselves.

While cigarette manufacturers' ads avoided the personal harm to come from smoking, Allstate insurance wasn't averse to using cigarettes as a tool of distracted driving in this 1940 advertisement, whose story tells of a driver rummaging in his pocket for a light only to run down a little girl. See? Cigarettes are hazardous to the health of those who get in your way.

The animated stars of "The Flintstones" also shilled Winston cigarettes (an early sponsor of the show) in a series of cartoon commercials in the 1960s. At far left is a Hanna-Barbera production cel from a 1960 commercial featuring Fred Flintstone lighting up with Stone-Age technology.

In an example of ads claiming scientific proof of the healthfulness of their products, this 1931 Chesterfield advertisement says it has on good authority that "Chesterfield cigarettes are just as pure as the water you drink."


Marlboro
In 1924 Philip Morris launched the Marlboro brand as a woman's cigarette. In 1930 Marlboro cigarettes had a greaseproof ivory tip to prevent women's lipstick from smearing; in 1940 a red "Beauty Tip" to hide unsightly lipstick smudges. Marlboro becomes a cigarette brand for men in 1954. During the 1950s Reader's Digest magazine published a series of articles that linked smoking with lung cancer. Philip Morris, and the other cigarette companies took notice and each began to market filtered cigarettes. The new Marlboro with a filtered end was launched in 1955.


16 outrageous tobacco ads that would be illegal today Tipalet cigarette ad: "blow it in her face, she'll follow you around". Kids smoking cigars, little girls smoking cigarettes, one is giving the other a light with her lit cigarette. Lucille Ball, ABC, Always Buy Chesterfields. The best cigarette for YOU to smoke

These Shocking Vintage Ads Of Kids & Cigarettes Will Make You Regret Those "Good Ol' Days" - My dad would never smoke anything but a Marlboro! You need never feel over-smoked ...that's the miracle of Marlboro! A stork carrying a newborn says "tell them to wait another 15 minutes, I'm enjoying my Churchman's cigarette!

[jerseyj]

Lucky Strikes recruited doctors to tout their brand as not causing throat irritation!!

https://www.history.com/news/cigaret...ng-endorsement