Lid is lifted on tobacco plant

controversial activities at the BAT cigarette factory in

Southampton. Ron Wain and Gareth Lewis report.

WHEN renowned Oxford Univer-sity cancer expert Sir Richard Peto prepared to visit Southamp-ton's vast British American Tobacco factory to give a talk, staff there already knew plenty about him.

BAT had prepared in-depth briefings ahead of the 1983 visit detailing not only his professional achievements but his private life, even down to the hand-gliding hobby of his brother, noting there appeared to be a trait of risk taking in the family.

Staff were also told the young Mr Peto, who grew up in Southampton, may have once scoured the city docks for cigarette butts to feed a youthful smoking habit.

This is just one example from four million documents which are now lifting the lid on the workings of an international cigarette giant. They detail everything from the revelatory to the mundane, such as train timetables for BAT guests arriving at Southampton from London.

Forced by American courts to make public almost all its internal documents from the 1950s to the 1990s, public health campaigners have seized the opportunity to make the unique BAT archive freely available to all on the Internet.

Visitors to www.bat.library.ucsf.edu can search through memos from top executives, research into lung cancer and other smoking-related diseases, comparisons of cigarette quality, letters, records and countless other documents.

The website will also inevitably be trawled by past and present staff at BAT in Southampton, who may be curious to see if they are named on internal documents. Many are.

Nicole Losy, the corporate and regulatory affairs spokeswoman for BAT at Southampton, which employs 1,200 people, said the company was unconcerned by the website, which covers material from the 1940s to the 1990s.

She said: "If anything untoward had been found, it would have been exposed years ago."

The unprecedented archive collection, which took five years and £1.6m to assemble, is being hailed by the anti-smoking lobby as a milestone in public information access in relation to smoking.

Being home to BAT's global research and development centre, Southampton sits at the heart of this paper mountain. More than 220 scientists and researchers in the city have spent decades carrying out cutting-edge research into the health implications of lighting up.

Patient study of the documents reveals how the huge company gradually conceded ever more ground on the ill-effects of its cigarettes.

In 1957, a year after the Southampton development facility was set up, city-based researcher Dr Felton wrote: "The idea has arisen that there is a causal relationship between zephyr and tobacco smoking, particularly cigarette smoking. Various hypothesis have been propounded one of which is that tobacco smoke contains a substance or substances which may cause zephyr."

Zephyr, which means west wind, was a company code word for cancer. Seven years before US Surgeon General Luther Terry would announce a link between smoking and cancer, this information was political and business dynamite.

The archive shows how the Southampton researcher's suspicion was backed up the following year when a team of UK scientists visited their US counterparts and found: "With one exception the individuals with whom we met believed that smoking causes lung cancer."

The internal memos continue with observations about factory workers, cigarette quality and animal experiments. In a note dated June 22, 1990, the background to a union pay dispute at Southampton was given to a Mr B D Bramley.

It stated: "Our assessment of the mood of the industrial workers at Southampton (which is the single largest group of employees with whom we negotiate), was that they were not in favour of the final offer we had made."

Another memo, under the headline Project RUBICON, talks of cutting 118 jobs at BAT as a whole, mainly "by eliminating duplication in marketing and in the service departments".

The word Rubicon is derived from Roman times, and essentially means a line must not be crossed.

One memo archived is an invoice from a Southampton woman, asking for payment within seven days of £185.90, for working 22 hours at £8.45 an hour.

Someone has scrawled over it: "Please charge Project Discovery."

Much of the material is devoted to cigarette product quality, with scientific analysis comparing nicotine and tar strengths for various brands, or testing natural against synthetic menthol to see which proved less "harsh and irritating".

Some of the documents indicate a more sinister side.

One, underlined BAT EYES ONLY, details the violent activities of the Animal Liberation Front, and how its members waged a campaign of terror.

That included contaminating bottles of Sunsilk shampoo at Boots in Southampton. Mars Bars were also laced with rat poison.

The memo pointed to a brutal attack in 1984 on a director of Wickham Laboratories, near Fareham, which was used by BAT for experiments on rodents.

The victim, who was an animal pathologist "from time to time" for BAT, discovered a diary of experiments for BAT had gone missing during the violent raid in his own home.

In September 1983, a BAT memo confirmed that temporary facilities had been found at the University of Southampton for animal experiments.

That same year, Labour MPs met up with BAT to ask company representatives what the purpose of animal experiments was.

The memo said: "Answer. We have been trying to develop tumours, and this is a requirement of the Independent Scientific Committee on Smoking and Health.

"The rats are subject to about ten minutes of smoking per day but the issue ought to be put into perspective."

It added: "The rats used in BAT experiments do not suffer."

Fast-forwarding to October 2004, BAT does not duck the well-documented health risks linked to the complex toxins contained in every cigarette.

Its corporate website stated: "We have long accepted that smoking is risky.

"Our business is not about persuading people to smoke; it is about offering quality brands to adults who have already taken the decision to smoke.

"We strongly believe that smoking should only be for adults who are aware of the risks."

Yesterday the global company recorded a £1.54 billion profit, a rise of 20 per cent, for the nine months to September 30.

Meanwhile, BAT is bracing itself for industrial action this time next week. Workers, who average £26,000, are striking for 24 hours in a dispute over pay.