Defensive Health Strategy

Defensive Health Strategy

This Philip Morris (PM) memo from 1961 shows PM scientist William L. Dunn, Jr. casting about for alternative business strategies the company could use if the link between smoking and disease ever became firm the public mind. The courses of action Dunn proposes reveal the mind-set of PM on this issue: In proposal #3, Dunn acknowledges the "lethality of the residual tars" in cigarettes, and muses about how to reduce them. In item #7, he proposes that the company develop an ad campaign "to be held in abeyance until needed" that would "alert the smoker to danger of excessive indulgence, or to the avoidance of that aspect of smoking behavior conducive to the development of pathology." (PM's ideology of blaming the smoker instead of the product). In item #9, Dunn proposes the company develop new products to "counteract the carcinogen process," and in Item #10 he proposes the company position itself to profit from former smokers' withdrawals: "Pharmaceutical diversification in order to capitalize upon and develop the market for withdrawal medication (tranquilizers?)..."

Author: William L. Dunn, Jr. Date: 19610719 (July 19, 1961) Type: Memorandum, report Bates No. 1001882173/2174 Collection: Philip Morris Pages: 2 URL: http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/sxu74e00