Recalled Cigarettes Only Smelly, Firm Says

Tainted Philip Morris cigarettes that prompted a recall couldn’t have made smokers sick but were only smelly and badtasting, the company said Tuesday in a retreat from prior health warnings.

The nation’s leading cigarette maker said it earlier misidentified the cause of the problem and found that the true contaminants - eight compounds in the filters - posed no health risks.

The May 26 recall was justified because the 8 billion tainted cigarettes “had a taste and odor problem” and because Philip Morris could not be certain that some bad cigarettes had not reached the public, the company said in a news release.