ECLIPSE: a "safe" cigarette? Big Tobacco's most outrageous lie

When I stumbled on this bizarre infomercial, likely from some time in the 1990s, I had to know more. Like, what was Big Tobacco thinking in trying to perpetrate an absurd hoax like this? 

I found ads for Eclipse cigarettes that made my hair stand on end. 

"A cigarette that presents less risk of cancer, chronic bronchitis and possibly emphysema."

This all seemed a little too bizarre to be true. So, like any good researcher, I did the easier, softer thing and looked it up on Wikipedia. Which didn't actually tell me much, but I DID get a link to a decent article about it all. Made my hair stand on end all over again! I felt like Harold Lloyd at the climax of one of his thrill pictures. The lies and doubletalk in the 1990s were just as astounding as anything perpetrated back in the 1960s, when Don Draper took a courageous stand and threw out their most lucrative client, Lucky Strike. 

Heated Dispute Over 'Safer' Cigarette

By Melissa Schorr

B O S T O N, Oct. 4, 2000 -- The promise of a “safer” cigarette may have been dampened today with findings that the smoke-free “Eclipse” contains higher levels of cancerous toxins than other low-tar brands already on the market.

Several anti-tobacco groups, including the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, the American Heart Association and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, released the results of the study today at a press conference in Washington, D.C. An independent laboratory, Labstat International of Ontario, Canada, performed the analysis with funding from the state health agency.

In response to the results, the Massachusetts health department contacted the Food and Drug Administration, the Federal Trade Commission and the Massachusetts Attorney General asking them to investigate the safety claims being made by R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. of Winston-Salem, N.C. on its Web site and in ads.

One claim, for example, the firm makes is that Eclipse may present less risk of cancer compared to other cigarettes.

The groups hope this report will spark an immediate governmental review of the product and its removal from the marketplace. “We want to see independent regulatory bodies review the scientific research in a comprehensive way,” says Dr. Greg Connolly, director of the Massachusetts Tobacco Control Project, who initiated the research.

A Safer Ciggie? 

R.J. Reynolds developed the Eclipse cigarette to help reduce the health hazards of smoking. Rather than burning the tobacco directly, the Eclipse heats the tobacco using a carbon rod insulated by glass fibers. The smoker inhales the heated air drawn across the tobacco.

Because only 3 percent of the tobacco is actually burned, the manufacturer says the cigarette produces fewer cancer-causing chemicals. It also produces very little second-hand smoke, potentially reducing the growing conflict between smokers and non-smokers.

The Eclipse was developed under the name Premier in 1988. It was test-marketed in Chattanooga, Tenn., in 1996. Currently, it is being tested in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area, and is also available for purchase via phone or internet.

R.J. Reynolds began specifically touting the cigarette as safer for smokers this past spring, after its researchers reported that the Eclipse produced around 80 percent less carcinogens and tar in its smoke than a traditional ultra-light brand of cigarette, the “Merit Ultralight.”

The company began contending the cigarette was less likely to cause a risk of cancer, bronchitis or possibly emphysema, with ads saying: “A cigarette that responds to concerns about certain smoking-related illnesses. Including cancer.”

Claims Challenged Questioning those claims, the Massachusetts Tobacco Control Project commissioned a Canadian laboratory to investigate the cigarette, comparing the Eclipse to two other low-tar brands, RJR Reynold’s own “Now King Size Hard Pack,” and Brown & Williamson’s “Carlton King Size Soft Pack.”

The results, released today, say Eclipse had equivalent amounts of nicotine and higher amounts of known cancer-causing chemicals than the other products: The Eclipse contained 734 percent more acetaldehyde and 475 percent more acrolein, two carcinogens, than the Now cigarette.

The lab also detected higher toxin levels than when the product was originally released in 1996.

“The [company’s] claim appears to be false and misleading,” concluded Howard Koh, the Massachusetts state health department commissioner, in his letter to the agencies calling on them to launch an investigation. “Further, the use of the data to make health claims about reduced risk to cancer also appears to be false and misleading.”

The report also found Eclipse produced significantly higher levels of carbon monoxide, a risk factor for heart attack, than RJR Tobacco had found in its own research. RJR has not made claims regarding cardiovascular issues because its findings had been “inconclusive.”

The American Cancer Society also is calling for the removal of the product from the marketplace. “RJR’s health claims on the Eclipse cigarette are ludicrous,” John Kelly, the society’s chairman, said in a statement. “The health claims cannot be trusted to tobacco industry scientists alone.”

Previous independent studies have also questioned other aspects of the Eclipse’s safety. In 1998, researchers reported in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention that tiny particles of fiberglass were present in the cigarette, a possible cancer risk if inhaled.

Keeping the Flame Alive 

But RJR Reynolds defends its product. “Under every testing regimen we have used, the smoke from Eclipse is chemically much simpler than that of other cigarettes, including ultra-low tar cigarettes,” Gary T. Burger, executive vice president of research and development, said in a statement responding to the Canadian findings.

Burger said his company has done animal and human tests showing a dramatic difference in toxicity, and will report those results in a peer-reviewed scientific journal within the month.

Other tobacco manufacturers are also testing cigarettes with allegedly fewer health risks. Phillip Morris is preparing “Accord,” also a reduced-smoke cigarette, while Star Enterprise, a small company in Richmond, Va., is test marketing “Advance,” a cigarette with tobacco specially bred to contain fewer nitrosamines, one of several cancer-causing agents.

Smoking kills an estimated 400,000 Americans annually.

Daniel Finger contributed to this report.

I hate doctors, and I don't want to go (take two)

The title sums it all up. I hate doctors. When have they done anything good for me? Every time I go, it turns out to be "nothing".

So should I conclude that it will always be "nothing"? The "it hasn't happened up to now, so it won't happen in the future" philosophy sucks rocks because it's illogical. It simply isn't true.

I am at the age - God, I hate that word - where I maybe need to worry. This is the time people are told to have screening tests like colonoscopies (which I always call colostomies by mistake - I freaked out a friend once by telling her I was supposed to have one) which scare me half to death because I've been told they can be agonizingly painful. One health forum had a comment from someone who said she would take her chances with serious disease rather than go through that again.

My husband collapsed on the floor about a year ago, and paramedics and police rushed over. Made me wonder why everyone ignores me when I have a medical problem, but then, he's male and considerably older than me. It might be heart disease, after all (because we all know women don't have heart attacks!). In the hospital they put him through a meat grinder, doing every possible diagnostic test on him. The follow-up was even more rigorous, cardiac, neurological, urological, bowel and guts and everything else they could ream out.

The result was exactly nothing.

So I don't want to go to the doctor. I don't want to go to the doctor because I've had some symptoms lately that are probably nothing, but at the same time scare the hell out of me.

It's funny, because Bill and I have talked about how we can't afford to live as long as our parents did (all four them were well over 90). In fact, we may have trouble affording our 70s. We've joked that if we make it to 80, we'll kill each other, kind of like a duel where we both shoot at once. But what if he misses, and I don't? Will I be charged with murder, or merely self-defense?

It doesn't sound good.

I think about cancer, everyone does, or do they? I don't know, I don't interview everyone in the world, or on the street. The thing is, people with cancer are usually seen as heroes, brave souls who keep smiling no matter how much it hurts. In contrast, don't ever get a psychiatric problem, for no one will visit you in the hospital with flowers and balloons. They will not. Talk about being left alone, but that is what happens. At a time when you are at your most vulnerable and in need of comfort, people shrink back in dread. They don't even talk about it except in whispers. This is not an idle statement, but based on some 50 years' experience. But I am doubted there, too. How can I even think that people could be so callous?

But cancer, now! There's a great opportunity for bravery, for heroism, for stoicism in the face of pain, and lots and lots of warm get-well wishes. Flowers, candy, visitors to perk you up, tons of Facebook encouragement, and So Much More.

Do I sound just a little bit cynical? I have my reasons.

I don't think I have cancer. So why go? I have this niggling worry. Shouldn't I just ignore it? I have had alarming symptoms for EIGHT years, with no relief because I've been told "we can't find anything" and "there's nothing we can do". Do I want to be called a hypochondriac? But how can you be a hypochondriac if you hate doctors and stay away for years at a time?

There is something cold and frightening about the medical assembly line, the way you come out the other end feeling like dressed meat ready for the oven. There is a "NEXT!" feeling that only seems to get worse over the years. They literally call it "processing patients", and see nothing untoward about it. Too many patients, not enough time, because the equipment is absurdly expensive, the tests take forever and suck up resources, and it's usually for nothing. 

But we are stuck with it. In the past, if you had cancer, you just died. Probably horribly, because there wasn't even a good way to manage pain. Unlike today, when it's the banner illness that has spawned a million fundraising walks in every color of the rainbow, it was heavily stigmatized: people didn't even say the name. Probably this was fear, a dread that "something" had taken you over, colonized your body and was eating away at you beyond your control. This "something" would suck out the marrow from your bones, cause you to waste away to a skeleton, and probably drive away all but the most loyal family members who probably prayed that it would all be over soon.

All kinds of stuff has been written about illness, its social and emotional significance, etc. Usually the sufferer is blamed for not having it all together emotionally, for having "unresolved issues" (as if everyone doesn't have those). I wonder now if it isn't just bloody bad luck. Have you noticed how unevenly luck and blessings are distributed in life? Ain't it a bitch, and don't you wish it was different? People still get sick and die, in spite of all that fancy equipment. I've had five friends die in the last few years, and three of them were only in their mid-50s. One who was exactly my age at the time pulled his truck over, opened the door, and fell to the ground dead. Perhaps his fate was better than the woman who battled breast cancer for years, or Glen, one of the most beautiful men I have ever known, who escaped from a psych ward, swallowed a bottle of pills, and was found frozen to death beside the railroad tracks.

Oh, and that's another thing: the war imagery we use, especially for cancer. She "battled" breast cancer, she "waged a valiant struggle", and sometimes she "triumphed" or scored a "victory" over it. I wonder why we do this. No one questions it, and when no one questions something I just get furious because we are PEOPLE, not cattle! My feeling has always been that you should question everything, especially loony social trends. The war imagery not only renders the sufferer especially valuable for being a "good soldier" (and we still think the military is special, no matter what anyone says), it places the whole thing at a safe, fictionalized distance, as if we're watching a World War II movie on TV or going to the Cenotaph for 45 minutes to watch old men stand in the rain.

Ah, the stoicism, the smiling in the face of doom. I wonder why people feel they have to do this, why it has become such a cultural imperative. If I had cancer, I think I'd raise bloody hell and be so hard to get along with, NO ONE would come visit me (a situation I should be used to by now). Then again, maybe I'd be terrified. I know I would not be stoical. I'd be shit-scared and probably miserable from all the clinical attention, the being fed through machines with no one talking to you.

I've heard it said that quite often, when you get your diagnosis, the doctor comes in the room, says to the patient "you have cancer", then turns and leaves you sitting there alone. If I don't go, I won't hear that, will I? These guys are sons-of-bitches, aren't they? Are there any good ones? Well, OK, my brother-in-law, he's a Gunning man and as far as I'm concerned they're all great, but he lives all the way across the country.

If I don't go, I don't need to hear any of that shit. But if I don't go, this little scritchy-scrabbly feeling in my gut may not stop for a long time. If ever.

Cigarette psychology

There was a time (think Mad Men) when smoking was so entrenched in culture as to be expected, even required.  A non-smoker was a social pariah, an oddball who lived on wheat germ and drank only celery tonic. Maybe he belonged to the Oddfellows (whatever that is). Old movies abound with cigarette symbolism, usually sexual in nature. It's all part of the art of seduction. Think Bette Davis and Paul Henreid blowing smoke in each other's faces.

Nobody mentions coughing your lungs out in a cancer ward.

The following little slice of post-war wisdom came from one of those oddity sites, so I felt free to borrow it. No doubt they did, too. Let's zero in on it some more. . . 

Even without reading the text, we can already see that hand position is paramount, even if the meaning isn't crystal-clear. The middle position is kind of baffling to me. I've never in my life seen anyone hold a cigarette like that. It's positively weaponlike. Is it meant as a sort of ash catapult, or an enemy smoke-wafter?

All of these photos remind me of Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, for some reason. He was constantly smoking in that one, just as EVERYONE was constantly smoking (and drinking). In every picture he made, the cigarette was his signature. But we all know how it ended. One might say that it cost him a lot.

Here the good doctor goes into detail about how smoking style reveals a man's personality. Man's. Not woman's:

OK then. So where do I start?  For one thing, that Dr. Neutra thing is suspicious to me. I think of Mr. Neutron in Monty Python. . .

. . .  and of course the words neutral and neuter. And a nutria, which is a kind of large beaverlike rodent made into coats (and other things).

But the reason women's smoking gestures aren't considered significant is obvious to Dr. Neutron (or whoever he is): "Women are so affected naturally in their regular posture that they're more often than not too conscious of how they hold a cigarette, and therefore useless as subjects for this experiment."

Useless? Affected? I can think of something to do with my cigarette. Dr. Neutron: sit on this and rotate!

But there's more of this shit to trudge through:

Note that the descriptions of women are devastating, even abusive, whereas he goes fairly easy on the men. If they put on airs, they're not "affected" but "sort of the Texas millionaire type". It's obvious the vast majority of the adjectives to describe men are positive (intellectual, brainy, contemplative, direct, straight-forward, hail fellow well-met, daring, calculating, dreamer, replete with business caution). As for women, any analysis is "just a guess" because they are so "affected": "insecure, afraid to lose that cigarette" (? They come in packs, don't they?). "She probably holds on to her man like glue." Greedy, graspy, possessive!  But the next one is worse: "Typical grasp of a female bored with her date. She has to concentrate on the tip to keep from yawning." One has to wonder if this Dr. Neutron has a filthy Freudian mind and sees prick-symbols everywhere he looks.

Is this whole thing a joke, a bit of satire to send up people's smoking habits? I think not! I believe it's drenched with misogyny and contempt for women, and trivializes everything about them.

So what is the conclusion? While you're busy rotting your lungs and throat with terminal cancer, boys, make sure you hold your cigarette in the proper way. Cultivate it for a good impression. Grasp it properly so that the tip is sticking straight up. And good luck in the heart-and-lung ward.

Butt Out - The Life and Death of Cigarette Advertising on Television

One of the better YouTube docs about cigarettes and the way Big Tobacco fought the truth (and won, for a very long time: "A treat instead of a treatment!").

By the way, this was produced by A & E. I used to watch Biography every day, then it trickled down to three times a week, then one, then it was on another network - then it disappeared, to be replaced by "reality" dreck. A & E no longer exists as a producer of quality documentaries.

"Do you inhale?": Vintage cigarette advertisements

Here is another of my gif /slidehows of old ads. I've wanted to do one of cigarette ads for a while now, but once I started researching, I was inundated. There are just thousands of these things out there. I found whole sites devoted to them. They had all been neatly archived according to date and type. The fascination with these things continues, so full of jaunty lies.

Cigarettes were so normalized, so much a part of culture. They were associated with sophistication (long gloves and cigarette holder), rugged masculinity ("Come to where the flavour is!"), femininity (a bride throwing a bouquet after stubbing out her Lucky), and certain psychological benefits - lifting you up or calming you down, depending on which direction you needed to be levelled. And of course, there was smoking as social ritual, a harmless and fun form of recreation.

These ads exhort you to "be happy - go Lucky!" They depict adorable babies posing questions to their Moms and Dads about their smoking habits. Doctors exhort their patients to smoke Camels, because that's what THEY smoke. More than one ad asks "do you inhale?" Women are bursting with athletic health and glee, never getting fat because they smoke rather than eat.

Did all this shit work? I mean, did people actually buy them because of this propaganda?

Must have. Took a long, long time for the public to catch on. Mad Men was actually about the tobacco boondoggle and its eventual defeat, though the show then had to go on to other things (like foreign cars that wouldn't start, thus defeating carbon monoxide suicide attempts).

I saw a documentary about all this - hair-raising, it was, because by the end of it, it turned out Big Tobacco was doing better than ever, shipping their lethal substance overseas to the Third World where smoking makes the horrors of life just bearable. This is where you see pictures of three-year-old kids smoking.

Let's look at a few of these things in detail.

Babies abound in these things, and it's puzzling. Of course they're cute, but are the ads somehow, obliquely, telling women that it's OK to smoke while they're pregnant? They DID tell women that. Also that it was OK to smoke around them. Everyone did anyway. But I find this association especially creepy because it makes no logical sense.

One of the more chilling Lucky Strike slogans was "Smoke a Lucky to feel your LEVEL best!" This usually depicted a widely grinning young woman - in this case getting married and throwing her bouquet.  But it's the fine print that makes my stomach drop: "Luckies' fine tobacco picks you up when you're low. . . calms you down when you're tense - puts you on the Lucky level." Level seems to be the operative term here, the desirable thing. Cigarettes are being used as a drug to regulate mood. Did it work? Look at the explosion of antidepressant use today. Maybe we should bring back the Leveller?

No. No! Not one. NOT ONE SINGLE CASE OF THROAT IRRITATION due to smoking CAMELS! Now I know why we're asked not to use all-caps on the internet because it makes you seem to be shouting. In this case, an official-looking man in a white coat, presumably a doctor, is displaying case studies of people who have gone and smoked their brains out for months, and STILL do not display ONE SINGLE CASE of throat irritation. "Start your own 30-Day Camel MILDNESS Test Today!" Mildness is a term you see in a lot of these ads, along with flavour. To me, sucking smoke into my lungs via my mouth and tongue just wouldn't taste very good. But I may be wrong. I can see why it might put you off food, which in these ads is considered a good thing.

Let me just transcribe the text below the photo: "A really mild, flavorful smoke that enters your mouth pleasantly cool and filtered. Embassy's extra length of fine, mellow tobaccos provides extra enjoyment plus an extra margin of protection. Try Embassy! Inhale to your heart's content!"

This is completely chilling in light of what we now know about the value of filters in protecting people from cancer. They did absolutely doodlysquat, but for decades the public was told over and over again that they filtered out "tar" and other unwanted things. This was an obvious attempt to assuage public anxiety about all those silly things the Surgeon General had been telling them, that their lungs would rot and they would end their days coughing up blood in a cancer ward.

This is another aspect of the cigarette ad: gorgeousness. Some of these are just so beautiful to look at! How could anything so sophisticated and artful be bad for you? But soft! What lie through yonder advertisement breaks? Could it be - more reassuring text?

DO YOU INHALE? Luckies "makes no bones" about this vital question. "Keep that under your hat," said the cigarette trade when first we raised the question - "Do you inhale?"

But silence is golden only when it's unwise to speak. Let others explain their striking avoidance of this subject. Lucky Strike makes its position crystal clear. . . for certainly, inhaling is most important to every smoker.

For everybody inhales - whether they realize it or not. . . every smoker breathes in some part of the smoke he or she draws out of a cigarette.

Do you inhale? Lucky Strike "makes no bones" about this vital question, because certain impurities concealed in even the finest, mildest tobacco are removed by Luckies' famous purifying process. Luckies created that process. Only Luckies have it!  "It's toasted"

"Toasted" seems to imply that the tobacco has somehow been purified of carcinogens (a word that might not even have been coined back then). Someone in the tobacco industry waved a magic wand over it, rendering it harmless. Surely the good folks at Lucky Strike, the LSMFT people ("Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco") would know best, and would never do anything to harm the public. But those ads seem to bespeak certain nameless jitters among the general population, not to mention the tobacco industry itself.

Was it the fact that 90% of heavy smokers were pulling a Humphrey Bogart or an Edward R. Murrow in their final days and gasping their last in the cancer ward? Did no one put the pieces together? But if they tried to, Lucky reassured them: pish-tosh! WE don't mind discussing the matter even though everyone else is being needlessly coy about it. WE are honest about the fact that smokers inhale. But our product is so magically-produced, with shamans sitting out in the tobacco fields moaning incantations over it day and night, that those delicate throat membranes surely won't start to ulcerate, bleed, fester, bubble, blister and turn black.

A FRANK DISCUSSION AT LAST

on a subject that has long been "taboo"

"Let sleeping dogs lie!" So said the cigarette trade when first we raised the subject of inhaling. But dodging an important issue is not Lucky Strike's policy!

Do you inhale? That question is vitally important. . . for every smoker inhales - knowingly or unknowingly. Every smoker breathes in some part of the smoke he or she draws out of a cigarette! And the delicate membranes of your throat demand that your smoke be pure, clean - free of certain impurities!

No wonder Lucky Strike dares to raise this vital question! For Luckies bring you the protection you want - because Luckies' famous purifying process removes certain impurities concealed in every tobacco leaf. Luckies created that process. Only Luckies have it! 

So, whether you inhale knowingly or unknowingly, safeguard those delicate membranes!

"It's toasted"

Visit Margaret's Amazon Author page!

Without further adieu. . .

Here beginneth the minimizing of health dangers from cigarettes. Not sure when this started, but TV ads began to emphasize "light", "fresh", and other words which might lead the consumer to believe that smoking did no harm

Survival?

"Luckies are easy on my throat." I can't make out all the rest, except "throat protection against irritation, against cough". 

Give 'em a whole carton, why don't you? Indeed, I do remember when a carton of cigarettes made a nice Christmas gift, especially when beautifully wrapped.

Outstanding . . . and they are mild! Mild meaning - ?

Santa, all tied up. . . in lawsuits.

But here's my favorite. 

Text: Delivering "just what you've always wanted" - A Treat instead of a Treatment

Old Golds

You can always give Old Golds with confidence, because no other leading cigarette is less irritating, or easier on the throat, or contains less nicotene than Old Golds. The conclusion was established on evidence by the United States Government.

MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYBODY!

  Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K7NGDA