Tobacco Additives Toxicity Examined

Many people in Birmingham will pledge to quit smoking in the coming new year. They need to. More than a third of Alabamians smoke and that fact leads to higher health care costs for everyone in Alabama as well as a plethora of diseases that affect the smoker like cancer and heart disease. A review of the toxicity protocols used by Philip Morris in the Project MIX that analyzed the 333 plus additives to cigarettes was published by researchers at the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California in San Francisco on December 20, 2011. The analysis of the protocols and test methods used by Philip Morris show "post-hoc changes in analytical protocols after the industry scientists found that the additives increased cigarette toxicity by increasing the number of particles in the cigarette smoke" and "the original Project MIX analysis, the published papers obscured findings of toxicity by adjusting the data by Total Particulate Matter concentration: when the authors conducted their own analysis by studying additives per cigarette, they found that 15 carcinogenic chemicals increased by 20% or more."