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SW: →Tobacco industry efforts to counteract reports of the Surgeon General: italicize title of SG report
==Tobacco industry efforts to counteract reports of the Surgeon General==
A 1981 internal [[Philip Morris]] (PM) memo marked "PERSONAL & CONFIDENTIAL" discusses how PM and the [[tobacco industry]] should react to the publication of the 1981 U.S. Surgeon General's report entitled ''The Health Consequences of Smoking: The Changing Cigarette''. The memo was written by [[Robert B. Seligman]], Vice President of Research and Development for PM at the time, and was sent to PM's president, another Vice President, Assistant General Counsel and several high-level PM scientists. In the memo, Seligman states the need for the tobacco industry to begin supporting and publishing studies that would "reverse the ground swell of public opinion which has emerged as a result of antismoking activity."
Seligman says,
Several times in the memo Selgiman acknowledges that "despite the fact that there are potential legal risks in directly supporting and publishing [such] studies" nevertheless the industry "must enter this arena." He refers to the industry's current situation as "trying to do battle without armament."<ref>Robert B. Seligman, Philip Morris [http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/jyt53e00 Surgeon General's Keport - Response (sic)] Memorandum/outline. February 12, 1981. 6 pp. Bates No. 1003658637/8642</ref>
In [[Operation Downunder]], a 1987 Philip Morris internal operation to deal with the growing issue of [[secondhand smoke]], two ideas on a brainstorming list included undermining the Surgeon General (at the time [[C. Everett Koop]]), and helping select the next Surgeon General.
==Sourcewatch resources==
