News Release

1999-66
April 28, 1999

Health Canada to investigate tobacco industry documents

OTTAWA - Health Minister Allan Rock today announced that he is sending a team of Health Canada officials to examine documents that are stored by British America Tobacco, in a depository near London, England.

The Minister is launching this probe in light of documents released at a press conference today by Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada, the Non-Smokers Rights Association and la Coalition québécoise pour le contrôle du tabac.

Minister Rock said, "I am very concerned by reports of the internal tobacco company documents made public today by Canadian health organizations. These are very serious allegations. I have instructed my officials to closely examine these documents and immediately plan to undertake research at the Guildford depository."

The objective of the research will be to shed further light on the scientific, marketing and information collection practices of the tobacco industry.

The Guildford Depository, which contains approximately 6 million pages of documents from British American Tobacco of London, UK (BAT) and its affiliates, is one of the two document depositories established by order of the Minnesota Court as part of that state's Medicare cost recovery suit. The other, containing over 36 million pages of documents, is located in Minnesota.

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