🚀 go-pugleaf

Internal Philip Morris document (June 24, 1987) showing early conspiracy to
disrupt the expose of second hand tobacco smoke as a health hazard:

(via smokescreen.org)

Excerpts:

"A. Altering perception" 
"B. Changing underlying fact from "not proven" to ETS is not harmful to non-smoker."
"Need long term science. What created perceptions is their science.  Is there
any fruitful science underway? Yes, in epidemiology and in monitoring, but next
year to year and a half of science will be negative.  Message has to be simple.
There is no risk. That's the message. "

Read this carefully, folks.  Note the acknowledgment that there was NO basis at
that time (and, indeed, there is none in the present day) to conclude that ETS
is anything but harmful.  Philip Morris didn't want to lose money, they could
see it was going to happen with bad press on ETS, so science had to be CREATED
to make their point.  Hence science bought and paid for by the tobacco
industry.  Hence the "smokers rights" idiocy.

How would anyone know "fruitful science" was "underway" unless the results were
somehow already predictable (ie bought and paid for)?  I guess they were
getting what they paid for.
  
To protect profits, a message is needed:  "There is no risk.  Solution:  buy
some science.  Solution: buy a "smokers rights" movement.  Buy those things,
cynically, to protect the bottom line of Philip Morris.