South Korea’s Health Ministry plans to establish a think tank to research the additives used in cigarettes manufactured and distributed in the country, as part of measures to support the state health insurer’s high-profile damage suit against major tobacco firms.

The think tank, to be established in August, will conduct research to determine if local tobacco makers use additives, such as ammonia, sugar and cocoa beans, to make their products more addictive.

Sugar, for example, is known to generate aldehydes when pyrolyzed. The combination of aldehyde and nicotine is known to be more addictive than nicotine alone.

Ammonia in tobacco, on the other hand, can boost the availability of nicotine from the cigarette up to 100 times, according to a 1997 study by the Oregon Graduate Institute of Science and Technology in the U.S.

The establishment of the think tank is closely linked to the National Health Insurance Service’s lawsuit against leading tobacco companies. The agency filed a suit against three domestic and foreign tobacco makers ― KT&G, British American Tobacco and Philip Morris ― last year, seeking damages of 53.7 billion won ($52 million) for payouts over tobacco-related diseases including lung cancer.

Prior to the suit, a state-run research institute in 2012 announced that it discovered ammonia, sugar and cocoa beans in tobacco cigarettes manufactured by KT&G, the biggest tobacco company in Korea.

In response to the research findings, KT&G at the time stated it added sugar and cocoa beans to its products only to give them a better taste, not to increase their addictiveness. The company also claimed that ammonia naturally occurs in tobacco, and it did not artificially add the compound to its products.

The lack of government research on the damage of tobacco use has been raised as a problem in Korea. Last year, the Supreme Court rejected a damage suit filed by 30 lung cancer patients and their families against KT&G. The court said there was a “lack of proof” that the patients contracted lung cancer solely because of smoking. It also stated that smoking, ultimately, is a choice, not a compulsion.

Bae Geum-ja, a lawyer who represented the lung cancer patients last year, said the court’s decision had been partially affected by the tobacco firms’ refusal to submit documents that listed all the ingredients used in their products for “confidentiality reasons.”

There was no local scientific data that could prove the harmful effect of additives contained in tobacco cigarettes manufactured by the KT&G, she added.

“The think tank’s researchers will conduct studies to determine if the products contain any harmful additives (to enhance the addictiveness of nicotine),” an official from the Health Ministry said. “Any findings that prove the harmful effects of tobacco will be submitted to the court as evidence.”

Aside from the establishment of the think tank, the NHIS is using U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler’s 2006 ruling that tobacco companies engaged in racketeering by misleading the public for years about the health hazards of smoking.

She ordered tobacco companies to stop using terms such as “low tar” and “light” on their products, as a number of studies suggested that low-tar cigarettes were no less harmful than regular cigarettes, and no difference was found in lung cancer rates between smokers of high-tar and low-tar products.

The judge also ordered companies to advertise that they had been deceiving the public about the health dangers of tobacco.

According to the World Health Organization, cigarettes kill 5.4 million smokers from direct use and another 600,000 nonsmokers through secondhand smoke each year.

In Korea, home to almost 10 million smokers, an estimated 57,000 die every year due to smoking-related diseases, including lung cancer.

Last year, the parliament approved an 80 percent increase in the price of cigarettes, from 2,500 won ($2.30) per pack to 4,500 won, in an effort to curb smoking. The new bill took effect on Jan. 1.

By Claire Lee (dyc@heraldcorp.com)