Filters & Cancer

Do filter tips really work? Yes, reported an eminent cancer researcher in last week's A.M.A. Journal. They make smoking safer--up to a point.

Dr. George E. Moore's research team at Buffalo's Roswell Park Memorial Institute tested six brands of cigarettes, four plain and two filtered, by "smoking" them in a machine and collecting the tar.

The tar yields from plain cigarettes differed by less than 20%, but the filtered brands yielded 67% less than the unfiltered average. Of 76 mice painted with tar from "straights," 41 developed tumors, and 16 of these turned to cancer; of 60 mice treated with the tar from the same number of filter tips, 15 got tumors, of which three became cancerous.

The evidence that filters reduce the risk of lung cancer is "indirect but meaningful," say Dr. Moore and colleagues.

Among smokers, men who smoke fewer cigarettes have a lower incidence of cancer; so, presumably, will those who filter the smoke and thus cut down the amount of tar they draw into their lungs.

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