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Action on Smoking and Health
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Former Philip Morris Scientist Says Cigarettes 'Could Have Been Safer' in Federal Racketeering Trial [10/07-1]
Excerpts from: Cigarettes 'could have been safer'
By AP [10/07/04]
A former US tobacco industry executive testified today that top cigarette makers for years had chosen not to make their products safer despite knowing how to do so.
Former Philip Morris scientist William Farone said the companies spent time and money on developing safer products, but often put aside those ideas rather than making them available to smokers.
Putting such cigarettes on the market, Mr Farone said, would be an admission that existing brands were harmful.
Government lawyers accuse cigarette makers of conspiring to deceive the public for five decades about the dangers of smoking.
Mr Farone is important in the racketeering case in which the Government is seeking $US280 billion ($387 billion) that the companies allegedly earned through fraud.
Mr Farone testified that there was no such product as a safe cigarette.
But, he said: "You can certainly make it safer to a very large extent."
The companies decided against doing that, he said, because of a decades-old "gentleman's agreement" in which they agreed not to compete with each other over whose products were the least hazardous to smokers.
Mr Farone said in written testimony previously filed with the court that he discovered the agreement while working at Philip Morris in the 1970s and 1980s, as a result of conversations with colleagues and his bosses.
He said cigarette makers did research on reduced risk products anyway in case a company broke the agreement or the government mandated improvements for cigarettes.
"All of our research was for defensive reasons," Mr Farone said.
"By that I mean that Philip Morris was preparing for a time when they were forced by the government or by competitors in the marketplace to make meaningful changes to their products."
Philip Morris lawyer Dan Webb got Mr Farone to acknowledge that tobacco companies successfully lowered nicotine and tar levels in cigarettes over the years and brought those products to the market, despite the alleged agreement among the companies.
Mr Webb also noted that the companies put numerous cigarettes on the market with different kinds of filters or ventilation holes, which can reduce the toxins smokers inhale.
He said many industries test product ideas but do not develop them.
In some cases consumers do not like the new products, he said.
Mr Webb also noted Mr Farone had not worked for Philip Morris since he was fired 20 years ago.
Mr Farone was dismissed after he was passed up for a promotion and then told his boss he hired a lawyer, something Mr Farone said he was advised him to do, according to court documents.
Mr Farone has testified in about two dozen other trials against the industry.
click here for more information on this case
click here to view Dr. William Farone's written testimony (PDF)
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