Tobacco Documents Online

10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 Q. About how long was your conversation? A. Oh, a good half hour. Q. What else did he tell you about the case? A. Really not much. For example, he didn't mention specifically the numbers of the persons involved or the time or any detail. Q. When did you -- what did you initially say when they asked you to testify? A. I told him that I had previously testified in the Cipollone case, and that I was ready and willing to testify again any time about the matter of limitations imposed by us -- attempted to be imposed on us by the tobacco companies on that we had found in our research. Q. When did you agree to testify? A. The first time they called me. matters Q. And that was a couple of weeks ago, you said? A. A couple of weeks ago. Q. Okay. Have you had any discussions about whether or not you will be paid for your time that you spend testifying? A. No, not at all. It was understood I wouldn't be paid. DORIS O. WONG ASSOCIATES CTR NN 04 IS-17f$

11 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 Q. Will you come to Miami to testify at the trial if they ask you? A. No. Because of my various disabilities that I enumerated to you, I cannot travel. Q. Since -- excuse me, let me back up. Have you reviewed any documents in preparation for your testimony here today? A. I have looked at my documentation of my own work in tobacco research and the correspondence that went on between the Council for Tobacco Research, Mr. Hoyt, and myself in the '70s. I looked at those data again. And I leafed through publications, of which there are many, just to refresh my memory. Q. Let me see if I understand what you've just told me. You looked at your previous publications? A. Yes. Q. You looked at your correspondence to and from the Council for Tobacco Research in the '70s? A. Yes. Q. Are there any other documents you looked at? A. I have a listing of events in time that I put down when I was to testify in the Cipollone case, because it becomes complicated, and so I DORIS O. WONG ASSOCIATES CTR I-IN ~°.~419`i"~`a

12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 looked at that to refresh my memory. And I think that's about all there is to it. There are documents on the smoking machines we have used, on the experiments specifically, but I didn't go into those. Q. The list you referred to, is that a handwritten list that you made yourself? A. It's partly handwritten and partly typed that I made out of my correspondence and my notebooks. Q. Did you put that together by reviewing the old correspondence and setting out the events? A. Yes. Q. I see. A. But as I mentioned, I didn't do that now. I made the list in the '70s -- no, I made the list prior to my testifying in the Cipollone case. Q. Did you show any of these documents or this list to anyone from Mr. Rosenblatt's office? A. I showed some of these documents to her, to Mrs. MS. SCHNEIDER: --Schneider. A. -- to Mrs. Schneider. Q. Would you have any objection if we asked to DORIS O. WONG ASSOCIATES C` TR r I N 0 4, 1 °I 'f" S4.

13 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 look at those? MS. SCHNEIDER: We didn't bring any documents with us. MR. RANDLES: Actually, this is another question, though. Q. Would you have any objection if I were to ask if you could bring them to the deposition tomorrow? A. No. Q. You would have no objection to me -- A. I would have no objection. Q. Thank you. I would like to ask that you do that, if you don't mind. I can talk with Ms. Schneider off the record later about that. After your Cipollone testimony, did Mr. Edell, E-d-e-1-1, pay you for your time? A. I got reimbursed for my travel expenses. Q. Since the Cipollone case and before Mr. Rosenblatt's office contacted you recently, has anybody contacted you after that trial to talk to you about your testimony? A. No. Q. Did anyone contact you to talk to you about your experiences with the Council for Tobacco DORIS O. WONG ASSOCIATES c-rR IwIN 0- 419BO

14 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 Research? A. No. Q. Did any -- I want to make sure I'm being clear. No lawyers contacted you from any law firm to talk about those things? A. No, not after my testimony. Q. Has any other law firm contacted you recently, other than Mr. Rosenblatt's law firm? A. There was a lawyer in Texas who was involved in the case of the Attorney Generals who called me maybe a month ago, and he asked me whether I would be willing to be an expert witness, and he said he would write me a letter. And we talked about that, and I really don't remember the name, because he never sent me a letter. So that is the only event of this nature that happened. But there was another thing, and that is the letter in Science by the director of research of the Council for Tobacco Research which is very recent and which stated that they never interfered with the freedom to publish of any of their research supported by the Council for Tobacco Research. And I responded to that, and Science published my letter wherein I stated that it was not true that they had DORIS O. WONG'ASSOCIATES Ch4? VIN '.4190-1

15 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 not interfered with publication of data but -- of research that they had supported. And that was published in the journal Science in September. Those are the only things. Q. When the lawyer in Texas asked you if you'd be willing to be an expert witness, what did you tell him? MS. SCHNEIDER: Objection to the form. You may answer the question. You can qo ahead. A. I told him that I would consider being an expert witness if the questions they had were within my experience. I told him I would charge $1500 a day. And that was about all I had to say. Q. Before that lawyer talked to you, since Cipollone had any other lawyer talked to you? A. No. Q. Have any non-lawyers talked to you about your work with CTR; for example, reporters? A. I really don't remember any, no. Q. If you -- A. Wait a minute. There was the editor of the letters in Science who talked to me after I had submitted my letter and asked me where she could DORIS O. WONG ASSOCIATES E .% ~. R 1w~~~ 0,41L-itiz

16 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 find documentation. And I referred her to the records of the Cipollone case; that may be the kind of thing that you have in mind. Q. Yes, it is. As we go along today, if you think of someone else, would you just stop me and let me know? A. I will tell you. Q. Thank you. Have you followed the press coverage of your -- of you and your statements about CTR since the Cipollone case? A. Not really. Q. No? Have you noticed -- have you read any newspaper articles that talked about you since Cipollone? A. Well, there was a book From Ashes to Ashes which quoted me very extensively, and I have that in my office. But otherwise I don't really remember anything I would have read specifically. I always look in the papers on news on tobacco, and I'm interested in that, so I would have seen it, but I don't recall any. Q. Did you feel that the book Ashes to Ashes accurately reflected your experience? DORIS 0. WONG ASSOCIATES 1M1 N 0 4, 1 S-3 8,0~

17 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 A. Yes. Q. Have you reviewed the transcript of your testimony in the Cipollone case? A. I have looked at that, yes. Q. Do you feel the transcript accurately reflects what you said? A. With the exception of some misspellings, it does. Q. That's always a problem. Not today, of course. Dr. Homburger, when I ask you about CTR, I'm just going to ask that even when I'm talking about the early years when it was actually called TIRC. If I'm ever unclear to you, please stop me, but I just do that for convenience. You received funding from CTR back when it was TIRC very early, didn't you? A. We were some of the first grantees, and that was because of my friendship with Dr. Little, who was the first director of research of the Council for Tobacco Research. And we received the first support in the middle '60s, when I still was working at Tufts, and we did studies on skin painting, which was in those days the standard to DORIS O. WONG ASSOCIATES CTR t-IN 041984

18 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 assay carcinogenicity of cigarette tars, and that amounted by the '70s to close to a million dollars, probably around $800,000. Q. When did you first meet Dr. Little? A. Well, in probably -- probably in 1948. I know that, because it was the year after the big fire in Bar Harbor, and I was in the process of establishing a Council Research Unit at Tufts University School of Medicine, and Dr. Little was around as the scientist in genetics of the mouse. And so I contacted him to become an advisot of a small group of four or five scientists that should advise the Tufts Council Research Unit. And he came and he liked his trips to Boston, he told me, and we became friends. And he asked me the year after the fire, 1948, to come to Maine and give a talk on our work. And my wife and I were both overwhelmed by the beauty of Maine, and we bought some land there through the help of Dr. Little. We built a house there in 1952, and we have been going to Maine ever since every year, with the exception of two or three years. Now I cannot travel we don't go. But Dr. Little and I became really good DORIS 0. WONG ASSOCIATES C " T R 11 N 0 I ~ ~~~~ ~

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 19 friends, and when he retired and was offered the job as director of the Council for Tobacco Research, I told him he shouldn't do that unless they gave him protection for his salary to the tune of at least a million dollars. And he said, "Oh, I can't do that and I don't really need to ask that. They would never do that. I need this job, because I would like to go to New York as often as I can, and I need the money. And above all, I can do whatever I want to do because," and I quote him literally, "My sarcophagus is built." And that was his attitude, and that is what got him into deep trouble. But his basic interest at the time when he started this job at CTR was to develop an animal system that could test th e effect of inhalation of smoke, as th e smoker does, in an animal, and that is what we were basically supported for. And we succeeded in showing over the years that mice and rats were no t suitable, because they were extremely sensitive to the toxicity of nicotine and other things in cigarette smoke and died before o ne could give them sufficient exposure to even hope for development of a cancer. And then sheer luck brought a woman from DORIS O. WONG•ASSOCIATES C'-;"* - IsR 1-- 11 N C), L -1, 1 ~;~'G ,