Smoking and Tobacco Control Monograph No. 7 
Table 5 
Changes in cigarette design and composition: 
Effects on smoke yields of selected toxic agents 
Smoke 
Compound 
Filter 
Perforated 
Filter 
Cigarette 
Paper 
Reconstituted 
Tobacco 
Expanded 
Tobacco 
Bright 
Tobacco 
Burley 
Tobacco 
Tar 
a 
e 
a 
a 
a 
b 
a 
Nicotine 
a 
e 
c 
a 
a 
c 
c 
pH 
NC 
NC 
NC 
NC 
NC 
d 
b 
CO 
c 
a 
NC 
a 
a 
b 
d 
HCN 
Volatile 
NC 
a 
NC 
a 
a 
c 
c 
Aldehydes 
Volatile 
NC 
a 
NC 
a 
a 
b 
a 
Nitrosamines 
e 
e 
NC 
a 
a 
6 
b 
Phenol 
e 
e 
NC 
a 
a 
b 
a 
PAHs 
a 
e 
NC 
a 
a 
b 
a 
TSNAs 
a 
e 
NC 
f 
f 
e 
b 
® Significant decrease. 
“ Trend for increase. 
‘ Can increase, can decrease. 
“ Trend for decrease. 
® More than a 50-percent decrease. 
' Unknown. 
Key: CO = carbon monoxide: HCN = hydrocyanic acid; PAHs = polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons; 
TSNAs = tobacco-specific N-nitrosamines; NC = no significant change. 
How can the human risk from cigarette smoking truly be assessed? 
Should we not above all remember that the only way to prevent smoking- 
related diseases is abstinence from tobacco? Meanwhile, millions of smokers 
in the United States and worldwide continue to smoke cigarettes and to use 
other forms of tobacco because of their dependence on nicotine. Smoking 
cessation efforts have had success for many but are not likely to stem the tide 
of an enormous epidemic of smoking-related diseases that will be seen in the 
coming decades in those parts of the world that have hardly begun to tally 
the incidence and mortality from tobacco-related illness. 
In the United States, we have today several sensitive techniques that can 
assist in determining uptake and even an individual's capacity for activating 
vs. detoxifying xenobiotics, such as the toxins and carcinogens from tobacco 
smoke (Bryant et al., 1988; Santella et al., 1992; Melikian et al., 1993; Hecht 
et al., 1994), but these so|)histicated methods of risk assessment are research 
tools that for now do little to guide the consumer. One may agree with the 
content of an editorial published in the New York l imes (1989) that read: 
"Obviously, no smoking is better than smoking, but the best should not be 
32 
