Originally posted by: Fencer128
They haven't suppressed a damn thing. They only denied the obvious. Point to a single case in which they stopped a doctor or medical journal from reporting on the health effects of smoking. Just one.
Meanwhile, it's pointless to blame them. Of COURSE they have their own self-interest in mind. When you want health information, you don't go to a bunch of farmers and cigarette rollers, you go to a doctor. Tobacco company research is meaningless.
A lot of research was carried out by the tobacco companies. A lot of it showed very grave health risks. All of this research was vetted by the companies. Things were left out and words were "sanitised" to make the research look less bad or definitive where apporpriate. At the same time the government was putting out the message that smoking was dangerous.
The data on which the governments claims were based was held as "open to interpretation" by the tobacco companies and they did their darndest to put a positive spin on it or to point out that it was not 100% definitive when they sure as hell knew the truth. All of this information in the public domain to not make it as obvious as it should have as to the unequivocal dangers of smoking.
That doesn't mean you can have class action lawsuits from people saying "I never heard that smoking was dangerous" but it does mean that states - for instnce - can sue to recoop losses due to health spending they think could have been brought about by the tobacco propaganda. The tobacco companies can have their own interests in mind - but they still can't lie to the public.
Here is a disturbing
link that I got in about 10s on google.
The president of the Australian Medical Association, Victoria, Dr Gerald Segal, described the documents as despicable and said they showed how far a tobacco company would go to spread "misinformation".
and
here's one you may find more believable if you disagree with the first.
The Lancet publishes damning evidence of tobacco company manipulation of passive smoking science
Cheers,
Andy