Stay Free! magazine














Search

        

issue 13 issue 14 issue 15 issue 16 issue 17 issue 18 issue 19 issue 20 issue 21 issue 22

Annals of Tobacco

"In 1952 the FTC directed a tobacco firm to refrain from claiming that its cigarettes, by virtue of containing a certain moistening agent, produced ‘less irritation.’ . . . Before the ruling was finally imposed, an astonishing series of scientific tests was conducted. The firm bubbled smoke from various cigarettes through water and dripped the solutions on to the eyes of rabbits; only the solutions of rival brands, it claimed, caused irritation. Embattled (and embittered) rivals devised their own smoking machines to blow smoke against rabbits’ eyelids. All smokes, they reported, had an identical effect. Another test (subsequently disallowed by the Federal authorities) involved cutting off the rabbitt’s upper eyelids, weighing the membranious linings, drying them in an oven and weighing them again. The firm under attack then cut holes in the air passages of the rabbits and pumped smoke into their lungs (presumably because the rabbits were reluctant to inhale). Five of the animals died, but (argued the experimenters) they were all smoking rival brands."

From the Shocking History of Advertising, p. 231.