Edition: U.S. / Global  Smoking and Cancer: What Cigarette
Concerns Really Knew  Published: June 17, 1988  As early as
1946, 20 years before warning labels went on cigarette packages,
tobacco companies were worried that cigarettes could cause
cancer. And in the 1950's, when independent researchers began
publishing major studies on the health hazards of smoking, the
companies began parallel and largely secret research,
duplicating and expanding on the published reports and
attempting to produce a safer cigarette while publicly denying
that any hazards had been established.  Dozens of tobacco
company documents, including confidential memorandums, were
obtained as part of the proceedings in the recent lawsuit
brought by Antonio Cipollone on behalf of his wife, Rose. A new
review of those documents revealed little that had not already
emerged in bits and pieces at the trial, but it provided a more
coherent picture than could be gained then and an opportunity to
match statements in the documents with researchers'