Not only did one of the country’s largest tobacco companies once sell cigarettes made with filters containing tiny, but deadly, asbestos fibers, but the company also advertised that the asbestos cigarettes were safe and healthy alternative to non-filtered cigarettes.
Now, decades later, smokers who have been diagnosed with mesothelioma and other asbestos-related diseases are suing the tobacco company in courts across the country.
According to a report published by Mother Jones , between March 1952 and May 1956 Lorillard Tobacco sold approximately 13 billion Kent cigarettes containing so-called “Micronite” filters. The Micronite filters were made of a blend of cotton, paper, and crocidolite asbestos, which is sometimes called “Bolivian blue” asbestos because of its bluish ting.
As stated in the Mother Jones report:
Kent was Lorillard’s response to the health scare of the early 1950s, when the link between smoking and lung cancer began drawing wide attention. Tobacco companies scurried to roll out filters to calm jittery smokers and keep them from quitting in droves. The health benefits would prove illusory, but the switch to filters averted the potential loss of millions of customers.
Lorillard claimed in ads that the Mirconite filter was “the greatest health protection in cigarette history.” Another advertisement stated that Micronite is a “pure, dust-free, completely harmless material that is so safe, so effective, it actually is used to help filter the air in operating rooms of leading hospitals.”
The company also advertised the cigarettes in medical journals and sent doctors Kent gift boxes with a letter claiming that the asbestos cigarettes are good for “patients whom you have felt obliged to advise to cut down or cut out smoking.”
Court testimony has shown that Lorillard’s advertising campaign did, in fact, persuade smokers to switch to Kents. A plaintiff in a recent lawsuit testified that “the Kent Micronite filter was supposed to be the healthy alternative, so I started smoking Kents.”
Internal company memos produced during the discovery phase of recent lawsuits show that Lorillard executives were informed that their researchers had discovered that the asbestos did not stay in the filter as the cigarettes were smoked, resulting in smokers inhaling asbestos particles. Nevertheless, the company continued selling the asbestos cigarettes for almost two years after it learned that the product was dangerous.
It has also been reported that many of the workers employed by the plants that manufactured the filters and cigarettes have developed mesothelioma and asbestosis. The asbestos filters were manufactured by Hollingsworth & Vose (H&V) in Massachusetts and were shipped to Lorillard plants in Louisville, Kentucky and Jersey City, New Jersey.
For its part, Lorillard defends itself in court by claiming that little or no asbestos leaked from the Kent filters. Expert witnesses for smokers, however, have found abundant asbestos particles in the cigarette smoke.
Lorillard also tries to convince juries that the plaintiffs in asbestos cigarette lawsuits did not smoke Kents, but instead smoked other brands of cigarettes. In efforts to prove this defense, Lorillard hires attorneys and investigators to travel around the country to interview family members and friends of plaintiffs to ask if they specifically remember seeing the plaintiff smoke Kent cigarettes.
These tactics notwithstanding, in September a jury in Florida awarded more than $3.5 million in damages to a former Kent smoker who now has mesothelioma.
It’s unknown how many people have suffered from mesothelioma and other asbestos-related diseases because of smoking Kent cigarettes containing the Micronite filter.
A recent filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission reveals that the company has settled 90 asbestos-cigarette cases so far and that another 60 lawsuits are still pending across the country.
Author Bio : Christopher M. Placitella is an attorney and shareholder at Cohen Placitella & Roth, P.C . Mr. Placitella has established a national asbestos litigation group dedicated to effectively representing individuals who suffer from mesothelioma and other asbestos-related diseases. An experienced litigator, Mr. Placitella served as trial counsel in the largest consolidated asbestos trial in New York City history and also obtained the largest punitive damage verdict against an asbestos company in New Jersey’s history.
Originally published on LawyerCentral by Christopher M. Placitella on October 28, 2013 Read the original (Internet Archive).