Smoking and Tobacco Control Monograph No. 7 
some sense to restrict their usage of tar by maybe getting rid of tar and 
talking about cancer-causing compounds or some other component and let 
these numbers communicate meaningful information about something we 
do know something about, rather than where we do not know anything 
about it that is conclusive? Would it be possible, in other words, to indicate 
people's relative risk with respect to lung cancer for smoking these different 
yield cigarettes? 
DR. HOFFMANN: As 1 see it, the public associates tar with cancer. 
DR. COHEN: 1 think they do it more broadly and associate it with overall 
safety. 
DR. HOFFMANN: They are not well informed. The American Cancer Society 
did a fantastic job, publishing this over and over again, and the public is well 
informed with respect to smoking and lung cancer. There has not been the 
same level of information communicated about coronary risk. 
DR. COHEN: In your view though, is it possible to relate the differences in 
tar yield in cigarettes to a reduction in cancer risk? If the answer is yes, it 
seems to me that one of the things the panel might consider doing is trying 
to convey that or recommending that be conveyed. 
DR. FREEMAN: Dr. Rickert? 
DR. RICKERT: 1 would be somewhat reluctant to do that for several reasons. 
First of all, the information with respect to lung cancer and risk reduction is 
from the 1981 Surgeon General's report that relates to cigarettes that were 
consumed 10 to 20 years prior to that date. My other concern is in terms of 
"tar is tar is tar," that is, is the quality of the tar from today's ultralow-yield 
cigarette the same as the quality or the carcinogenic potential of tar from a 
cigarette from many years ago? 1 do not think we know that the tar of 
today's cigarette is the same as the tar of the cigarette many years ago that 
was being related to lung cancer. 
DR. HOFFMANN: With respect to your first point. Dr. Rickert, there was 
an International Agency for Research on Cancer monograph in 1986 that 
presented 15 studies that all show between a 13- and 30-percent reduction. 
I here are also reports from the World Health Organization, and there is the 
Fluropean study by the National Cancer Institute. It did not end with 1981. 
DR. RICKER F: i am not uncomfortable with the idea that there is a risk 
reduction. What 1 am suggesting is that we really do not have enough 
information about the tar characteristics of today's cigarettes to directly 
compare them. 
DR. HOFFMANN: You can do only risk biomarkers. Otherwise you cannot 
do it. 
DR. RICKERT: 1 agree. 
DR. FREEMAN: Yes, Dr. Hoffmann. 
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