The original cigarettes were unfiltered. Most cigarettes changed to filtered when Reader's Digest published a report in 1952 titled "Cancer by the Carton". In the article Reader's Digest told of the dangers of lung cancer with the use of cigarettes. Kent was one of the first to make changes to their products by introducing the Micronite filter. They were not the first with a filter, that distinction belongs to Viceroy in 1936, but they were the first and only one to attempt to create a new filter with the use of the flame retardant material known as blue asbestos. From 1952 to 1956 they sold their new filtered cigarettes with the promise of being safer, but with the added risk of Mesothelioma (a cancer almost always induced by exposure to asbestos).
Many who smoked the "safer" filtered cigarettes died later of cancer unrelated to the smoke, but instead related to the filter. Even the workers who made the cigarettes were exposed and led much shorter lives.
-Professor Walter
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