A Frank Statement

Smoking was so prevalent that before these results were published, the increase in lung cancer incidence was attributed to the growing presence of automobiles, roads, and factories in cities.

[6] In 1950, Dr. Ernst Wynder and Evarts Ambrose Graham published a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association in which they interviewed 684 people with proven cases of lung cancer about their smoking habits.

The study found that heavy and sustained usage of tobacco, especially in the form of cigarettes, increased the likelihood of developing of lung cancer.

The recruitment of credentialed scientists like Little who were skeptics was a crucial aspect of the tobacco companies' social engineering plan to establish credibility against anti-smoking reports.

By amplifying the voices of a few skeptical scientists, the industry created an illusion that the larger scientific community had not reached a conclusive agreement on the link between smoking and cancer.

[16] Thus, the industry responded to the growing public concern by marketing their cigarettes as having filters, milder smoke, and lower tar and nicotine content; however, they did not acknowledge a causal link with cancer until 1999.

[16] In reality, the TIRC was created as a public relations measure for the purposes of discrediting independent science and portraying the tobacco companies as transparent and concerned for the well-being of their customers.

[16] An example of this is a memo from the vice-president of the Tobacco Institute in which the industry's strategy was described as "creating doubt about the health charge without actually denying it", and "advocating the public's right to smoke, without actually urging them to take up the practice".

[14] However, as more research revealed the deceptiveness of these claims, tobacco companies began to use advertisements, like A Frank Statement, to deny that their products caused cancer.

[14] As a result, the tobacco industry's manipulation of science as a public relations tactic is still used today in debates on a wide variety of subjects including global warming, food, and pharmaceuticals.

Using many of the same advertising techniques of glamour, sex, and independence, the industry has begun to target women and children in Eastern Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Africa, where government bans and health education may not be as prevalent.