
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, April 14, 1994                   TAG: 9404140351
SECTION: NATL/INTL                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Knight-Ridder/Tribune Note: above
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                 LENGTH: Medium

CIGARETTE ADDITIVES DISCLOSED

The tobacco industry, which has fought for years to keep secret just what it puts in cigarettes, gave in to congressional pressure Wednesday and released a list of nearly 600 cigarette additives.

The move came a day before cigarette company executives were expected to face grilling at a congressional hearing about what goes into cigarettes.

Even as the tobacco companies were releasing this list, they came under attack again on a separate front.

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., a leading congressional opponent of smoking, charged that a 1981 study for one of the major tobacco companies - Lorillard Inc. - shows that cigarette makers were boosting the levels of nicotine in low-tar cigarettes.

While Waxman did not produce any evidence for what has occurred since 1981, the study's author and other industry representatives recently have denied that tobacco companies manipulate the level of nicotine in cigarettes. The issue is an important part of the debate over whether the government should regulate cigarettes as a drug.

Waxman said the study proves the companies do manipulate and, in some brands, intentionally increase the nicotine levels by choosing blends of tobacco that will have a higher nicotine content.

``The tobacco companies have lied,'' Waxman said.

Alexander Spears, the study's author and vice chairman and chief operating officer for Lorillard, said in a statement that Waxman had misinterpreted his study.

Spears said that cigarettes with higher levels of nicotine don't necessarily yield more nicotine in tobacco smoke. Spears said that just as he stated at a recent congressional hearing, the low-tar cigarettes do have less nicotine in the smoke.

Meanwhile, R.J. Reynolds, the cigarette maker that distributed the additives list Wednesday, said that all the additives are safe and nearly all are present in food items.

But Dr. Ron Davis, chief medical officer for the Michigan Department of Public Health, said that just because a chemical is safe in food does not mean it will be safe in a cigarette. For example, the 1984 Surgeon General's report noted that cocoa - normally considered a harmless substance consumed regularly by many people - had been shown to increase the cancer-causing potential of tar, which is found in cigarettes.

The list does not say how much of the various additives are used, which brands they are used in, or which combinations of additives appear together in cigarettes.

``The burden ought to be on the tobacco companies to prove that this stuff is safe to inhale after you burn it,'' said Dr. Stanton Glantz, a professor at the University of California's School of Medicine in San Francisco.

by CNB