Between 1952 and 1956, Kent Cigarettes (owned by P. Lorillard Tobacco Company), advertised on TV and in print, showing the implied health benefits of a new cigarette Micronite filter developed for their KENT line of cigarettes. These filters were made from asbestos, a fact never directly disclosed in any of the ads that we found.

According to the University of Alabama collection of information on the KENT cigarette Micronite filter, KENT’s advertising campaign was also included in medical journals. The ads described these KENT Micronite filters as “so safe, so effective it has been selected to help filter the air in hospital operating rooms” and that it was used “to purify the air in atomic energy plants of microscopic impurities”. We were unable to independently verify the ads stated this. None of the ads we found made these specific claims.

Although it’s difficult to pin down if they knew in advance that the use of an asbestos filter was dangerous for humans, the dangers of asbestos were already documented by 1952 (when they first started using it). The Journal of the American Medical Association in August 13, 1949, published an article titled ‘Asbestosis and Cancer of the Lung’ discussing this relationship. After the fact, in 1995, the NIH published an article stating:

“These observations suggest that people who smoked the original version of this cigarette should be warned of their possible substantial exposure to crocidolite during the 1950s.”

Below are pictures of the Micronite filter of a 1955 KENT cigarette, dated 2005.

Below are some advertisements for the same filter (both print and TV).

Three circa 1953 magazine advertisement for KENT cigarettes:

Five print advertisements for KENT cigarettes with a specific source:

An advertisement for KENT cigarettes in LIFE Magazine, January 25, 1954

An advertisement for KENT cigarettes in The Saturday Evening Post, May 30, 1953

An advertisement for KENT cigarettes in The Saturday Evening Post, November 21, 1953

An advertisement for KENT cigarettes in Collier’s Magazine, March 5, 1954

An advertisement for KENT cigarettes in MD Magazine, March 1960

Two additional print advertisements associated with a year, but not a specific publication:

An advertisement for KENT cigarettes 1954.

An advertisement for KENT cigarettes 1963. Although this advertisement features a copyright year of 1963, which post-dates the end of the use of asbestos in their Micronite filter, it still mentions the Micronite filter as they changed the filter material by 1957.

Two TV commercials for KENT cigarettes, both featuring actor Dick Van Dyke, 1965