Tobacco Industry Promoted Unproven Flame Retardants in Furniture to Avoid Creating “Fire-safe” Cigarettes

In a series of investigative reports on endocrine disruptors in flame retardants, Patricia Callahan and Sam Roe reported in theChicago Tribune that in the late 1980s, the tobacco industry convinced the National Association of State Fire Marshals to back the use of unproven flame retardants in furniture to reduce fire deaths.  Why did the tobacco industry care?  Because they wanted to avoid pressure to design “fire-safe” cigarettes, a difficult engineering task that might have cut into their profits.