When cigarette filters were made of asbestos

Share on facebook
Share on twitter
Share on linkedin
Share on email
Share on print

If advertising is to be believed, in 1954, the American Medical Association ran a test comparing filtered cigarettes. 

The test concluded that, “of all the filter cigarettes tested, one type was the most effective for removing tars and nicotine. This type filter is used by Kent.” 

The P. Lorillard Tobacco Company’s Kent Micronite filter’s alleged superiority was owed to—wait for it—asbestos.

An online exhibit from The Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society documents Lorillard’s advertising alongside interviews with an asbestos expert and a product liability attorney. 

The exhibit also documents the filter’s legacy: medical case studies, lawsuits, and legal settlements. 

Asbestos cigarette filter: “So effective it has been selected to help filter the air in hospital operating rooms.”

A 1955 Kent Micronite filter cigarette
1953 magazine advertisement for P. Lorillard Tobacco Company's Kent cigarettes, promising "greater protection than any other cigarette"
Excerpted from The Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society’s full online exhibit on the Micronite cigarette filter.

Attorney Nathan Schachtman discusses asbestos and its bizarre use by the P. Lorillard Tobacco Company in the quest for a safer cigarette

In 1952, using the popular new medium of television, the P. Lorillard Tobacco Company sponsored “scientific” demonstrations to show the efficacy and implied health benefits of its Kent Micronite filter. The campaign also featured advertisements in medical journals. 

Although the ads did not disclose the composition of “Micronite,” the material that Lorillard touted as “so safe, so effective it has been selected to help filter the air in hospital operating rooms” and that was used “to purify the air in atomic energy plants of microscopic impurities”—was asbestos. 

This exhibition features a display of the Kent Micronite filter created in 2005 for the Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society by asbestos expert Anthony G. Rich.

Also in this exhibit, Alan Blum, director of the Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society, interviews attorney Nathan Schachtman, whose 35-year law practice has focused on the defense of product liability suits, with an emphasis on the scientific aspects of exposures to toxic substances from products and environmental sources. He has also taught a course at the Columbia Law School on probability and statistics in the law. 

An excerpt from the exhibit appears here on the Cancer History Project. 

American Cancer Society: The legacy of Relay for Life

Runners in the American Cancer Society Relay for Life

Twenty-six years ago, when Mike Neal first interviewed for a new position with the American Cancer Society, he kept hearing mention of something called Relay For Life. 

“It was new, and it was exciting,” said Neal. “People were telling me you’d go and stay overnight at a high school track. I thought, ‘That sounds like the strangest idea.’” 

Despite his reservations, Neal and his family created a team and headed to their closest Relay For Life in Moon Township, Pennsylvania. His team also brought along a putt-putt golf game, hoping that a sunny day would allow event goers to stop by their tent and try out the game for a chance to win prizes.

Unfortunately, the weather had different plans. Gusts of winds and rain would blow down tents, and event participants would continually have to put them back up.  

During that day, two young blond children kept visiting Mike’s tent, hoping to play the putt-putt game between rain downpours. 

As the night went on, the rain did not let up. Mike walked laps around the track for his team, hoping to be relieved around 2 A.M. But when he saw that the rest of his family was sleeping soundly, he kept walking. 

He eventually took up stride alongside a young man, who was also braving the dark and cold. 

“We started talking, and he said he was from a town in Virginia that was about 5 hours away,” Neal recalled. “I asked him why he’d decided to come all the way here for this Relay For Life.” 

Neal soon learned that the man had lost his wife to cancer earlier that year. Those blond boys who had been playing the putt-putt game, the man said, were his two sons. 

“He said that when he heard there was going to be a Relay For Life in his wife’s hometown, at the high school she attended, he knew he had to come,” said Neal, who now serves as Chief of Organizational Advancement at the American Cancer Society. “He said he needed to be able to do something in memory of her fight against cancer.” 

It was at that moment, Neal said, that he understood what Relay For Life was about. He stopped complaining about the rain, and he continued to walk for the rest of the night. 

“That was my introduction to what Relay For Life has done for so many people.”

Read more about the history of Relay for Life on the Cancer History Project


This column features the latest posts to the Cancer History Project by our growing list of contributors

The Cancer History Project is a free, web-based, collaborative resource intended to mark the 50th anniversary of the National Cancer Act and designed to continue in perpetuity. The objective is to assemble a robust collection of historical documents and make them freely available.  

Access to the Cancer History Project is open to the public at CancerHistoryProject.com. You can also follow us on Twitter at @CancerHistProj, or follow our podcast.

Is your institution a contributor to the Cancer History Project? Eligible institutions include cancer centers, advocacy groups, professional societies, pharmaceutical companies, and key organizations in oncology. 

To apply to become a contributor, please contact admin@cancerhistoryproject.com.

Table of Contents

YOU MAY BE INTERESTED IN

U.S. Deputy Secretary for Health and Human Services, Andrea Palm, and Sweden's Minister for Health Care, Acko Ankarberg Johansson, signing the agreement. Credit: Joel Apelthun/Government Offices of SwedenThe United States and Sweden signed an agreement to step up collaborations in science and technology by focusing on cancer research.

Login