It was hardly surprising that the members of the Dail Committee on Health and Children reacted with incredulity to the answers given to some of their questions on the subject of smoking and health when those questions were posed last week to representatives of the Gallaher Group, manufacturers of Benson and Hedges and Silk Cut cigarettes. Indeed, it would be fair to ask just where Gallahers have been these past decades as the evidence for the addictive, health-damaging and lethal effects of smoking was building up. Or where have they been this past year while their counterparts in the American tobacco industry have been alternating between confrontation and capitulation with governmental agencies in the United States?
Whose cause did Mr Ian Birks, the head of corporate affairs in Gallahers, think he was serving when he asserted that smoking was merely a risk factor in illnesses like lung cancer and that smoking was a habit akin to cravings for eating sweets or using the Internet rather than an addiction to nicotine? He declared that the Gallaher Group was defending itself against litigation in the United Kingdom and that it would also defend itself against a number of writs being prepared in Ireland. "We will be defending ourselves in Ireland and we will not be settling those cases", he said. Time will tell what the outcome of those cases is.
Are Gallahers not aware of the fact that in March last year in the United States Liggetts, the manufacturers of Chesterfield cigarettes, admitted in the course of making a settlement with prosecutors in 22 states that tobacco smoking was addictive, that it caused cancer and diseases of the heart and lungs? Are they not further aware of the fact that Liggetts also, in the course of making that settlement, handed over hundreds of documents to be filed in state courts and that these are very likely to contain evidence that will be used in the prosecution of cases against American tobacco companies? Do Gallahers seriously expect people to believe that there are no networks of communication within the international industry of which they are a part?
It may be, of course, that Mr Birks was trying to keep Gallahers' powder dry until such time as cases pending against them come to court either here or in the United Kingdom. That is a perfectly legitimate strategy. But his statements to the Joint Committee did not seem very persuasive to the members of the committee who quizzed him. They will not seem remotely persuasive to any who have seen the mountain of scientific evidence which shows smoking to be addictive, to be causative of lung cancer and a likely cause of other cancers, and to be a significant contributor to the development of coronary and other arterial diseases, not to mention chronic bronchitis and emphysema.
That evidence, and the likely content of the documents which Liggetts surrendered to the American courts, was sufficient for the larger tobacco manufacturers in the United States to treat with states' attorneys for a Liggett-style settlement only weeks after they had tried to ridicule the Liggett settlement with a mixture of denial, dismissal and denigration. Those negotiations ultimately collapsed when Senator John McCain's Bill was tabled in the US Senate last April and the tobacco majors, having found it to be too punitive of them, decided to cut loose and take their chances. It seems fair to say, given the weight of evidence available, that those chances are not too good. But that seems not to matter to Gallahers: they seem still to be in a state of denial and dismissal.