Smoking and Tobacco Control Monograph No. 7 
In any case, smokers constitute only the demand side of the cigarette 
market. On the supply side are a handful of cigarette manufacturers who, 
so far as is known, go to considerable lengths to determine the detailed 
characteristics of competitors' products. From time to time, a cigarette 
manufacturer will disclose the level of a particular chemical in a particular 
brand. One classic example is the claim by one manufacturer, in the early 
1960's, that a particular brand delivered smoke with reduced phenol, an 
announcement that coincided with scientific reports that the phenol in 
cigarette smoke inhibited the cilia lining in the respiratory tract. However, 
without systematic and complete disclosure requirements, such "competition" 
will remain haphazard at best. In 1989 the tar content was listed on only 
14 percent and the nicotine content on only 11 percent of U.S. cigarette 
packages (Davis et al., 1990). 
Enhanced and complete disclosure of cigarette characteristics by a 
standardized label would create a basis for more effective competition among 
manufacturers. If Hoffmann and colleagues' (this volume) data are 
generalizable, then the growing trend toward use of hurley tobaccos in 
American cigarettes might have resulted in increased deliveries of TSNAs, 
even as other smoke constituents have declined. Without specific disclosure 
of tobacco-specific nitrosamines, it is unclear how this deleterious trend 
would be reversed or even detected. As economists know, competition among 
manufacturers over a specific brand characteristic, such as a cigarette's TSNA 
delivery, does not require that the average smoker — or even most smokers — 
know what a "nitrosamine" is. 
QUESTION-AND-ANSWER SESSION 
DR. HOFFMANN; We go through stages in all research; so we go through 
stages in tobacco research. The first stage was to identify those agents that, 
in the laboratory animal, cause disease. The second stage we are in now is a 
biomarker stage. This gives us 4-aminobiphenol, bihemoglobin, and tobacco- 
specific nitrosamines. 
I do think we are now in a better position to judge the relationship between 
smoke components and disease. One should not forget that we have now 
moved past the stage of biomarkers where it is solely the identification of 
agents, and I do think one should not have such a negative outlook. 
DR. HARRIS: Yes. I did not include as possible endpoints by which to 
compare individual cigarettes the possibility that these components may 
be found bound to the hemoglobin and red cells, or circulating proteins, 
or albumen in the blood. It is a fact that certain biomarkers, certain 
hydrocarbons, 4-aminobicarbons, and other compounds, have been now 
found bound to blood proteins or other compounds, not only among those 
who smoke cigarettes, but recently, in the Journal of the National Cancer 
Institute, among those who are expo.sed passively to cigarette smoke. 
Whether those can be used for a com[)arative analysis of different cigarettes 
I do not know. Hut 1 would, in order at least to be provocative or speculative. 
