Cigarette Filters

Asbestos cigarette filters were produced by Hollinsworth & Vose Company, also called H&V Specialties, for Lorillard Tobacco Company's Kent Micronite” brand cigarettes. Over the past several decades, smokers have been increasingly shunted out of restaurants, bars, and patios—where businesses have been happy to put out ash trays for them, and where aimlessly tossing a butt aside is both more noticeable and less acceptable—and onto city streets.
Scientific publications were identified through PubMed using the following search terms: lights, ultralights, tar, cigarettes, filter ventilation, air dilution, adenocarcinoma, Ames, cigarette filter tumorigenicity, nitrosamines, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, inhalation, puff topography, mutagenicity, smoking machine, compensation, smoking behavior, and chemical yields.

It is not possible at this time to assess lung cancer risk from the highest ventilated filters (ultralights”) because these were only introduced to the marketplace in the late 1990s, so that there has not been enough latency to observe a change in risk, and relatively few smokers smoke these cigarettes.
Commercially available CF-containing cigarettes Parliament Aqua, Kent, Mevius, Seven Star, and Lark were obtained online in 2015 ( ). All of the cigarettes were stored over the long term in their original packaging at −20 °C in airtight plastic bags.
Very good results have been obtained in the use of such filters for the removal of nicotine and tars from tobacco smoke, especially in view of the fact that the filters supply other requirements equally as necessary to the success of a tobacco smoke filter.

1. A TOBACCO SMOKE FILTER ADAPTED TO REMOVE CERTAIN UNDESIRABLE COMPONENTS FROM TOBACCO SMOKE, SAID FILTER BEING COMPRISED OF A BUNDLE OF CONTINUOUS, LONGITUDINALLY ALIGNED FILAMENTS IN WHICH SUBSTANTIALLY ALL OF THE FILAMENTS EXTEND THROUGH THE FULL LENGTH OF THE FILTER FROM END TO END, SAID FILAMENTS BEING ESSENTIALLY COMPRISED OF CELLULOSE ACETATE AND A PLASTICIZER THEREFOR, SAID FILAMENTS CARRYING ON THEIR SURFACE SOLID FINELY DIVIDED VEGATABLE STARCH SUBSTANTIALLY UNIFORMLY DISPERSED OVER THE SURFACE OF THE FILAMENTS AND A WRAPPER AROUND THE CIRCUMEFERENCE OF SAID BUNDLE.
1. A tobacco smoke filter adapted to removecertain undesirable components from tobacco smoke, said filter being comprised of a bundle of continuous, longitudinally aligned filaments in which substantially all of the filaments extend through the full length of the filter from end to end, said filaments being essentially comprised of cellu lose acetate and a plasticizer therefor, said filaments carrying on their surface solid finely divided vegetable starch substantially uniformly dispersed over the surface ofthc filaments and a wrapper around the circumeference of said bundle.

The assumption of greater lung exposure to tobacco toxicants leading to an increased risk for lung adenocarcinomas due to filter ventilation is may not be in conflict with clinical trials and cross-sectional biomarker studies using blood and urine biomarkers because these studies do not provide information about lung exposure, distribution, or other local effects in the lung.