The Filter Fraud

The Unfiltered Truth About Smoking and Health

Even though the cigarette companies never publicly acknowledged any lasting harm attributed to their product until 1999 when Philip Morris acknowledged the scientific evidence implicating cigarette smoking in diseases, they have always attempted to portray various brands as safer and healthier than others. No aspect is more central to the hoax of safer smoking than the filter. One of the most heavily advertised brands in medical journals in the 1950s was KENT, manufactured by P. Lorillard, which had a filter that was promoted as “so safe, so pure, it’s used to filter the air in many hospitals.” The KENT filter was made of asbestos.

“The cigarette with the built-in Filter Mouthpiece”

Parliament advertisement
Journal of the American Medical Association, vol. 151, no. 3, page 58|
January 17, 1953

“L&M filters are just what the doctor ordered!”

Advertisement featuring actor Fredric March
Life, page 38
February 22, 1954

“The American Medical Association voluntarily conducted…a series of independent tests of filters and filter cigarettes.”

Kent advertisement
1954

“Finest Natural Tobaccos Famous Micronite Filter”

Kent advertisement
MD, page 194
March 1960

“Someday all cigarettes will probably be made this better way”

Parliament advertisement
The Doctor’s Wife, page 14
March/April 1960

“If you could put Tareyton’s charcoal filter on your cigarette, you’d have a better cigarette.”

Tareyton advertisement
Massachusetts Physician, vol. 28, no. 3, front cover and page 81
March 1969

“Carlton is lowest.”

Carlton advertisement
Physician East, front cover and interior page
August – September 1983

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