Big Tobacco's Dollars Douse Push for Fire-Safe Cigarettes

Many people know that http://www.cigarettespub.net/marlboro/gold is considered the nation's leading preventable cause of death. But it is less widely known that cigarettes also are the leading cause of fatal fires, responsible for about a quarter of all U.S. fire deaths. Often, the 1,000 victims each year are not just smokers who drifted off to sleep, but children and other innocent bystanders.Yet many scientists and fire officials say these deaths could often be avoided because small design changes in cigarettes would make them less prone to start fires.
And indeed, during the last quarter-century, many bills have been introduced in state legislatures and Congress to require cigarettes to meet a fire-resistance standard.
But tobacco companies, claiming fire-safe cigarettes would not be commercially feasible, have repeatedly overpowered or outflanked such efforts. And the way they have done it, secret documents and interviews show, is a textbook example of a powerful industry using its wealth and ingenuity to stave off regulation.
They have done it through a sophisticated, two-pronged strategy that has included bankrolling in-house scientists and outside consultants to debunk the technical feasibility of safer cigarettes.
At the same time, they have attracted the strangest of bedfellows by doling out millions of dollars worth of grants, contracts and services to cement an ingenious alliance with fire-safety organizations. In the process they have won the favor, and in some cases the silence, of credible groups whose whole purpose is saving lives.
And they have shifted the fire-resistance burden to manufacturers of everything from mattresses and furniture to pajamas.
"Their answer [is] to fire-proof the world against our torches," said Rep. John Joseph Moakley (D-Mass.), who began pushing fire-safe-cigarette legislation in 1979 after a family of seven perished in a cigarette-caused fire in his district.
But some fire groups, grateful for tobacco's financial support, appear to have accepted the industry's argument that fire-safe cigarettes remain a pipe dream.
"I can't overemphasize the good that this money has done," said Fred Allinson, president of the National Volunteer Fire Council, which has received heavy support not only from cigarette manufacturers but from smokeless tobacco giant United States Tobacco.

Firms Deny Any Cynical Motives