You have nothing to gain in this' you will read later. But can be that you are curious to know why people smoke and why so hard for them to quit. To know 'cause some of these will die. And please understand 'cause all this seems very normal. To do that you must get into the engine room of the more 'great feat of engineering of consent that has ever been conceived. It 'a complicated undertaking. It 'a collection of men and institutions have become cogs in a subtle mechanism, able to infiltrate the culture and science of medicine and upset the corrupt at all levels. And to lead you through this maze. Robert Prroctor will take you "by the hand.
Robert Proctor, 57, is not 'it' a conspirator it 'a hygienist extreme. Historical sciences, professor at the prestigious University in Stanford, California, and the author of "Golden Holocaust," a book that 'came out in the U.S. that does a thorough investigation of the American tobacco industry. To the point that it has resorted to all legal avenues to try to put his hand on the manuscripts before publication. Without success.
What 's so striking in these 750 pages that have preoccupied giants like RJ Reynolds or Philip Morris? We are their words. Their small and big secrets, memories and messages contained in the interior, in confidential reports, in their statement of research chemicals, their physicians. The fact 'little-known: this valuable and explosive documentation-the "tobacco documents" - and' the public since the late 90's. In 1998, the Master Settlement Agreement, which contains the procedures carried out by 46 American states against smoking does not include a financial component (the payment of USD 250 billion -180 billion-euro installment in two decades), but in order to make them public all the secrets of the industry.
INFILTRATION
Millions of documents relating to more 'than fifty years, were transferred from the headquarters of the tobacco companies to the University' of California at San Francisco, which was responsible for building the "Legacy Tobacco Documents Library, and to put everything on the Web Thirteen millions of documents, that 'more' than 79 million pages, are already 'classified and almost every day they add new ones. And 'thanks to these archives "Golden Holocaust" is trying to tell a story of the global cigarette. Robert Proctor has trawled the "Tobacco Documents" for more 'than ten years. Stuff as to become paranoid. Among many other things, he discovered that the professor who recruited him at Stanford, for several years, had a secret relationship with the tobacco giants. We have also included 'cause one of its funding applications had been rejected by the National Science Foundation (primary federal agency for funding research American) who examined the questions he had received money from tobacco companies ...
All the time spent on "Tobacco Documents" and 'served to reach the same conclusions. Experts from the World Health 'Organization (WHO) issued a report explosive than 260 pages, published in July 2000, which shows how tobacco companies had infiltrated into their organizations through associations screen or scientists secretly paid by them. The way to put a spoke in the wheels of possible control policies on tobacco. On the sidelines of the initiatives taken by the Clinton administration in 1999, in part based on "documents", federal prosecutors have come to the conclusion that American tobacco companies have "organized and put in place for half a century-and continued to organize and in place-a vast conspiracy to deceive the public. "
5.5 MILLION DEATHS EACH YEAR
The first issues on smoking are enormous. Each year, smoking kills more 'of malaria, more' Aids, more 'of the war, more' of terrorism. And over the sum of these four. More 'than five and a half million lives that are less prematurely each year. One hundred million deaths in the twentieth century; and without doubt one billion in the current century.
Reflect on tobacco causes dizziness and nausea. Every year, we produce a quantity 'of cigarettes that could fill 24 pyramids of Cheops. Their combustion will deposit 'something like 60,000 tons of tar inside the human lungs. There you can 'ask the question' cause man has invented the most 'unnecessary dangers against himself, but that' does not lead to anything. "The smoke-and-sums Robert Proctor 'the invention more' deadly history of mankind. '"
There are also other figures and other calculations. "For every million cigarettes smoked in the course of a year, corresponds to a premature death in the twenty five years to follow. And 'roughly a valid law everywhere, "says Robert Proctor. This macabre rule has unexpected applications. How to know how many deaths were caused by the lies of senior executives of the "Big Tobacco."
KEEP ALIVE THE DISPUTE
On 14 December 1953 the great "patron" of the tobacco are left with the discretion of the Hotel Plaza in New York. A few months before, some experiments on mice have shown that the product they sell and 'carcinogen-what' German doctors already knew 'from the 20s-and some newspapers are beginning to evoke this possibility'. After the meeting with the "boss" of Hill & Knowlton, a counselor in the field of public relations, the tobacco giants embark on a battle of propaganda and manipulation of scientific doubt that will move 'in the' time awareness of the dangers of smoke. We need to "keep alive the controversy." An executive of Brown & Williamson writes in a famous memory, found in the "tobacco documents": "Doubt 's what we produce." Successfully. But only in 1964 the authorities 'American health begin to let people know clearly that there is' a link between tobacco and lung cancer.
Ten years later. "If we shift the curves of the consumption of tobacco, that 'if you place in 1954 what' had been highlighted since 1964, it is noted that 8 trillion of excess cigarettes were consumed in the United States. These would not have been smoked if the public had known ten years ago, says Robert Proctor. This means eight million deaths in the next decade. "The lies of half a dozen manufacturers have caused the death of several million people? A drama that would put in scene a conspiracy of such magnitude, it would be singled out as unrealistic or anachronistic absurdity '.
Everything begins in December 1953. Additional events are precedents. The Marshall Plan, for example. The great plan of aid to the reconstruction of Europe devastated by World War II and 'too' used 'cause American cigarettes jumping off European populations more' close to blond tobacco "flue-cured", easily inhalable ". It 's all here. The "flue-curing 'and' a technique to make dried tobacco leaves, which expands significantly in the U.S. in the late nineteenth century, and that helps make the smoke less irritating, so more 'deeply inhalable. In the first half 'of the twentieth century is still smokes, a good part of continental Europe, the dark tobacco, very acrid, and much less dangerous additive. But why 'dependence that develops is more' strong, it is necessary that the smoke can penetrate deep into the lungs with the nicotine that you arrive more 'quickly. And the damage to the lung tissue are more 'determined. "During the meeting in Paris (July 12, 1947) that triggered the Marshall Plan, there was no specific request of the Europeans on tobacco, says Robert Proctor. The question was proposed and put in work thanks to a senator of Virginia. Overall, for two dollars of food, tobacco and a dollar 'was routed in Europe. "
MAKING THE MOST SMOKERS 'CLOSE POSSIBLE
The success of the smoke always rests today in the talent of the chemists of the "Big Tobacco" to make the smoke more 'sweet, more' volatile, more 'penetrating. Smokers who are familiar with this feeling of spicy freshness in the lungs, believe that smoking is a natural and normal. "Swallow" the smoke, they say. But 'instead the result of a chemical sharp and complicated. Several hundred components-combustion accelerators, ammonia, various additives, sugars, etc. - Are added to tobacco. They make the smoke less irritating, more 'inhalable. "You can 'say that smoking and' absolute a defective product, in the sense that 'more' harmful of what 'might normally be ... and it' altered to make the smokers more 'close as possible to what' the it is dangerous, "says Robert Proctor ..
But what 'that is found in cigarettes and not' was added by the chemical industry, but by the whims of nature. So 'and' for polonium 210. For reasons not yet clarified, the tobacco leaf has a detestable property ': it shall fix the focus of this radioactive element is present naturally in the environment, at the minimum levels. The "tobacco documents" show that in the 50s the industry has discovered this truth 'uncomfortable. Industry will not disclose 'anything about it. The first independent publications in the field will come to light only in the middle 'of the '60s ...
"Golden Holocaust" tells how the leaders of the industry have reacted to this "little problem" quality 'of the finished product. The details are lavished by "tobacco documents" that introduce us to a bewildering universe. In the early days the cigarette manufacturers did not assess the importance of this radioactive element and tried to keep it a secret. Since 'the make known he could "awaken a sleeping giant" ("walking a sleeping giant," in the original text), an executive of Philip Morris writes to his "patron" in 1978, adding: "The argument would make a lot of noise and i think it is better not to give details. "
Different solutions are discovered. Change fertilizers? Treating the tobacco leaves with the aid of an acid bath? Select the leaves that contain less polonium? None of these solutions, it seems, 'was considered valid. 'Cause this problem did not give "commercial advantage", in the words of a senior executive of RJ Reynolds, traced in the "documents". The passage of tobacco leaves from an acid bath, for example, would result in a "special management" of radioactive waste. And this costs money.
A FORM OF SLAVERY '
The fear of the industrialists was that this treatment could affect the properties 'chemical nicotine, making it less effective addiction that ar necessary to become more' valuable their capital. Not only that, but it 's better not to make public domain this problem, even if it was an ad for its solution. In the 80s, Philip Morris closes its own laboratory specific. Especially not to wake the "sleeping giant".
Thirty years later, he still sleeps a deep sleep. How many smokers know they have in the package of 20 cigarettes of polonium 210? How many of them know that a pack and a half per day-equivalent according to an assessment published in 1982 in the "New England Journal of Medicine," an annual exhibition of rays at a dose equivalent to 300 chest x-rays? How many know that the polonium 210 and 'manager of a non-marginal cancers contracted by smoking? As you know, there is' something sadly impressive to see some anti-nuclear activists who smoke a cigarette when they are waiting to intercept them, the convoys of uranium oxide nuclear industry: they themselves are introduced into the body a radioelement that will expand 'in its internal ...
The success of an initiative of propaganda itself with this kind of paradox. There are others too. For example, the pleasure procured by smoking. "It 'a pure invention of the industry, says Proctor. There 'a fundamental difference with other drugs such as alcohol and cannabis. The smoke is not 'a recreational drug. It does not bring any thrill. "The smoke that does not relieve those who are 'accustomed to tobacco, and it' functional. "It 's all in the cards" documents ": Smoking is not' how to 'drink alcohol', but 'how' to be alcoholic," says Proctor. Among those who like beer or wine, only 3% and 'addicted to alcohol. While between 80 and 90% of smokers and 'employee. It 'a form of slavery.' "
PROPAGANDA
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has campaigned in the early 90s for freedom 'to smoke in the workplace. But it 's also true that the ACLU has had some prestigious hundreds of thousands of dollars from the tobacco industry ... "How can' talk of freedom 'when 90% of smokers surveyed said that they are going to stop and make prevention?" the jargon of Orwel not 'distant. "The war and 'peace', 'love and' hate," said the all-powerful party of the film "1984". In the world of tobacco 'slavery' and 'freedom'. "
That message and 'was really effective. Adolescents often evaluate the use of cigarettes as a manifestation of a rebellious spirit. Convince yourself to subdue their biological functions in the large industrial groups and 'as rebel here is a true result of marketing, so' and as' written in all the papers of the "tobacco documents". You have to sell the idea to young people that smoking means "rebellion acceptable."
Create mental reflexes in the population-that it can not resist the critical analysis' to simple common sense-and 'the most' fascinating about this story. And 'the result of large investments. After several decades, the appearance of cigarette brands in Hollywood and 'calculated blows of millions of dollars. Millions more are invested in the industry for the academic biomedical research: not to find remedies to diseases of tobacco, but, often, to document the genetic predispositions to disease, or not attributable to smoking. "Colossal Somme have been entered for the tobacco in functional genetics, to the detriment of work on environmental risk factors, including tobacco-says Proctor. A situation that helps to develop the idea that diseases are planned and we can not do anything against them. "
Infiltration of culture, infiltration of science. It 'was Robert Proctor to decode it with his science: "I have also tried the mice in my house clean," he says. Fifty-most historians secretly financed or paid by the tobacco-and 'in favor of the industrialists. In the "tobacco documents" speak industrialists to develop a team of scientists. Only two American historians-including the author of "Golden Holocaust" - led to arguments in favor of the sick.
The history and 'an important game, even crucial. "Addressing the story in a certain way, concluded the Stanford professor-like, for example, in this study shows that 'the origins of the dispute tobacco in seventeenth century', allow to normalize a phenomenon that dealt with different, it would be simply intolerable. "You have to enter smoking as a variable in the long history trivial to hide the unprecedented nature of the dependence of mass and 'developed after the middle' of the last century.
Using history and social sciences in order to manufacture consent. Philip Morris has formalized this project in 1987 under the name of "" Cosmic Project, "a plan to" create an extensive network of scientists and historians around the world, "so 'as we always say" tobacco documents ". "It was to recruit scientists whose work or their ideas could help to forge a 'historical narrative' favorable to industry," says Proctor.
One technique, like many others. In the 90s, the historian working on an original story and not deciphered: the politics of public health 'in Nazi Germany and Hitler declared war on smoking. One of his articles was published in 1997 by the 'Bulletin of the History of Medicine'. But a few years later the magazine refusal 'another of his articles-this time the American tobacco industry. When a study identified a relationship between tobacco control and totalitarianism, and it 'accepted; but when it calls into question the industry, and it 'rejected. "To understand-and-Proctor says' enough looks at the composition of the editorial board of the magazine and the financial ties of some of its members with the tobacco industry." The watchdogs of the "Project Cosmic" watch over the door of the scientific journal.
(Source: Paul Yeung - Reuters news agency)
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