 |
Accept it: The cancer stick is not going away any time soon |
On 14th July, we published a story on the effort by scientists to significantly reduce the level of harmful carcinogens in cured tobacco leaves (Research helps reduce cancer-causing compounds in tobacco).
I have kicked the habit, developed during my rookie years at a newspaper, more than a decade ago. Although I am not a great fan of smoking and smokers, I’ve had the opportunity to work with the tobacco companies in the past. Not for a life science title, of course.
I found the people working at these companies quite friendly. They weren’t necessarily smokers, too. Some, like an Asia Pacific-based executive from Imperial Tobacco, were well-known for their philanthropic works outside the industry.
Unlike some people from other maligned industries, they readily admitted to me that smoking is harmful. It is. But so is alcohol. And yet alcohol is liberally promoted, sacrilegiously on TV around Christmas time, as a product of status and a symbol of goodwill.
The tobacco people’s attitude is: “We are just catering to the consumer’s demand.” The tobacco industry is not going to throw the business away any time soon because so much money is involved. So many livelihoods depend on the nicotine cravings of millions of people.
Of course, the regulatory bodies are not always tolerant of tobacco. But the tobacco industry, always imaginative, is not without backup plans. In some parts of Latin America, the industry utilise its knowledge in the management of the tobacco supply chain to offer a new kind of service: third-party logistics.
It is not uncommon to find a tobacco company in that region providing logistical services to businesses outside the tobacco industry.
The other plan is to commission scientists to develop cigarettes that are not carcinogenic. That’s where agbiotech comes in.
I am still not sure about non-carcinogenic cigarettes. But if Bayer and Icon Genetics succeed in developing tobacco plants that can be used as drugs to fight diseases such as cancer and to vaccinate against the common cold (Bayer uses tobacco plants to develop patient-specific drugs, 21st July), then hats off to them.
It will give tobacco growers a good reason to do business.
Talking of tobacco, in 2004, a life science journalist went to a summit on genetic modification (GM) held in Brazil, where the Latin American and Caribbean countries discussed the state of GM developments in the region.
The Brazilian representative, he informed me, readily admitted that although there are laws in place to limit the use of GM technology in agriculture, the Brazilians simply shrugged them off and went on to cultivate millions and millions of hectares of GM soybean.
The Cuban representative, however, found himself in a different predicament. His department succeeded in developing tobacco plants that were resistant to blue mold virus. But his boss wasn’t too happy about it. He was told to get rid of all the GM tobacco plants.
It wasn’t that the boss has any moral issues. Far from it.
The representative was told by his boss that Cuban cigars are known for its quality and purity. People have an image of Cuban cigars being rolled on the thighs of virgins. Using genetically engineered tobacco implies ‘technological advancement’. It would simply shatter the romantic illusion and the public perception of ‘tobacco purity’.
