Chapman, however, said that smokers in Australia would have no way of finding out whether locally manufactured or imported cigarette filters contained material sourced from pig haemoglobin.
“The tobacco industry has a decades-long history of keeping its customers ignorant about what it is they are buying. There is not just tobacco in a cigarette.”
“It just puts into hard relief the problem that the tobacco industry is not required to declare the ingredients of cigarettes... they say ‘that’s our business’ and a trade secret."
So far, at least one cigarette brand sold in Greece was confirmed to be using pig haemoglobin in its processes, Chapman said, and the status of smokes sold was unknown.
The revelation that first came to light through an article published by www.news.com.au which quoted Chapman points to recent Dutch research which identified 185 different industrial uses of a pig - including the use of its haemoglobin in cigarette filters.
A new book exploring the many and varied uses of pigs after slaughter has revealed that haemoglobin from pig blood is used in the production of cigarette filters.
The book, Pig 05049, by Dutch author Christien Meindertsma, reveals 185 different uses to which a dead pig can be put - from the manufacture of sweets and shampoo, to bread, body lotion, beer and bullets. But the revelation that pig haemoglobin is used in cigarette filters to create an “artificial lung” that supposedly lessens harmful chemicals reaching the smoker is set to re-open the issue about the failure of the tobacco industry to reveal what additives and ingredients are used in cigarettes.
The tobacco industry can put anything legal in its products with no obligation to inform either the government or consumers. It voluntarily declares certain ingredients on unpublicised websites but each brand has a catch-all qualifying statement saying “Processing aids and preservatives that are not significantly present in, and do not functionally affect, the finished product are grouped as "processing aids". The details of the materials in these “processing aids” are well-kept trade secrets.
“Smokers who do not want to use pig products are entitled to be told whether Australian cigarettes have pig products included in these “processing aids” Chapman said.
This recent exposure on the cigarette ingredient is certain to raise concerns for Muslim, Jewish and vegan smokers and may result in drastic change of their lifestyles.
Comments by local cigarette manufacturers and various Islamic religious bodies are currently being sought by Malaysian Digest.
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