Background: In 1992, British American Tobacco had itsCanadian affiliate, Imperial Tobacco Canada, destroy internalresearch documents that could expose the company toliability or embarrassment. Sixty of these destroyed documentswere subsequently uncovered in British AmericanTobacco’s files.Methods: Legal counsel for Imperial Tobacco Canada provideda list of 60 destroyed documents to British AmericanTobacco. Information in this list was used to search forcopies of the documents in British American Tobacco filesreleased through court disclosure. We reviewed and summarizedthis information.Results: Imperial Tobacco destroyed documents thatincluded evidence from scientific reviews prepared byBritish American Tobacco’s researchers, as well as 47 ori -gin al research studies, 35 of which examined the biologicalactivity and carcinogenicity of tobacco smoke. The documentsalso describe British American Tobacco research oncigarette modifications and toxic emissions, including theways in which consumers adapted their smoking behaviourin response to these modifications. The documentsalso depict a comprehensive research program on thepharmacology of nicotine and the central role of nicotinein smoking behaviour. British American Tobacco scientistsnoted that “… the present scale of the tobacco industry islargely dependent on the intensity and nature of the pharmacologicalaction of nicotine,” and that “… should nicotinebecome less attractive to smokers, the future of thetobacco industry would become less secure.”Interpretation: The scientific evidence contained in thedocuments destroyed by Imperial Tobacco demonstratesthat British American Tobacco had collected evidence thatcigarette smoke was carcinogenic and addictive. The evidencethat Imperial Tobacco sought to destroy had importantimplications for government regulation of tobacco.
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