More on Secret Documents [12/22-2]

FROM USA TODAY 12/19/97]:

Among the revelations:

-- A 1959 memo from an R.J. Reynolds scientist, Alan Rodgman, saying their was a "distinct possibility" that substances in cigarette smoke could have a carcinogenic effect.

-- A 1970 letter from the head of research at Philip Morris saying, "Let's face it . . . we are interested in evidence which we believe denies the allegations that cigarette smoking causes disease."

-- A 1978 memo from Philip Morris executive Robert Seligman indicating that the CTR was not set up to do objective research, but to serve as an industry "shield" and help identify scientists who would work with the industry and agree to serve as expert witnesses in trials.

-- A 1976 memo from a chief scientist at BAT Industries, the parent company of Brown & Williamson, saying that "for certain groups of people, smoking causes the incidence of certain diseases to be higher than it otherwise would be."

-- A 1980 BAT memo stating that company denials of the link between smoking and disease were no longer credible.

FROM THE WASHINGTON TIMES [12/19/97]:

Tobacco company attorneys, not scientists, guided industry research on cigarettes and health over the past 40 years, including studying why children smoke, according to subpoenaed documents released yesterday.

The papers suggest that major cigarette manufacturers used attorney-client privilege to keep unfavorable information from the public, as Minnesota Attorney General Hubert H. Humphrey III has charged in a lawsuit scheduled for trial next month.

The documents immediately set off a debate on whether Congress will need more information before it considers legislation giving the tobacco companies limited liability from more lawsuits in return for payments of at least $368.5 billion over the next 25 years.

But Rep. John D. Dingell, Michigan Democrat and ranking minority member on the House Commerce Committee, came to the opposite conclusion, suggesting that the documents might hint at a far broader effort by the tobacco industry to lie about the link between smoking and cancer and other diseases.

"To the extent that these documents give weight to claims that the industry engaged in a conspiracy to commit scientific fraud, it may complicate attempts to address questions of immunity in legislation," he wrote in a memo to other Democrats.

Tobacco foe John Banzhaf, executive director of Action on Smoking and Health, said the documents demonstrate "more blatant tobacco industry antitrust activity than may have previously been suspected," and destroy their defense that they did not try to conceal evidence of smoking's effects on health.

FROM THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS [12/18/97]

Citing the tobacco industry's "conspiracy of silence and suppression of scientific research," a Minnesota judge on Wednesday ruled that 864 previously secret documents may be used against the industry in court.

His ruling offered a first, brief public preview of what may prove to be this year's most politically sensitive trove of tobacco documents.

Anti-smoking groups, however, vow to use the documents to keep Congress from giving the industry the immunity it seeks from class-action lawsuits or punitive damages.

Tobacco firms had sought to keep the papers private under the doctrine of attorney-client privilege. That privilege is lost, however, if people use their lawyers to commit fraud or criminal acts. On Wednesday, Judge Fitzpatrick upheld a special master's ruling that the tobacco industry had done exactly that.

Knowing the Minnesota courts would order disclosure, tobacco firms may have given the documents quickly to Congress in order to get the bad news out of the way early, said John Banzhaf, director of Action on Smoking And Health.

"But this won't end the questions," he added. "These documents will be like a bad meal. They'll come back to haunt them."

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