Tobacco Documents Online

Copyright 1993 American Broadeast'ing-Companies, Inc., A1ll rights reserved. ABC'NEWS SHOW: PRIMETIIy1E LTYE.. Febru_ary; 25.103 - LENGTH: 8228' words HEADLI;NE: Srnoke and Mirrors; More Washington Waste; My Child BODY: ANNOUNCER: February 25th, 1993. SAM DONALDSON,, ABC News: [voice-over]~Toniight, a PrimeTime investigation. Dr. ANTHONY COLUCCI: Quit this lying! Quit telling this lie. DONALDSONt [voice-over] The charge - for 40 years the tobacco industry has conspired to obscure~ the: truth about smoking and health. 1st TOBACCO COMPANY SPOKESMAN: It has not been established that cigarette smoking- 2nd TO'B'ACCO COMPANY SPOKESMAN: The bottom line is that we simply don't know- 3rd!TO'BACCO~COMPANY SPOKESMAN: It is not aclosed case. KENNETH! WAR'NER': This is one of the most reprehensible examples of corporate behavior gone wrong that has ever existed' in the history of this country. DONALDSON: [voice-over] i Also, a mystery - why a cigarette that might have saved lives was deliberately kept from consumers. [interviewing] "fhey wanted to see if they could develop ai safe cigarette.. JAMES MOLD: Correct.. DONALDSON: [voice-over] All right,, what happened?, Mr. MOLD: We did. ANNOUNCER: From ABC News, withianchors Diane Sawyer, Sam Donaldson, chief correspondent Chris Wallace, Judd Rose, Jay Schadler, Sylvia, Chase, John Quinones, and Renee Poussant,,this is PrimeTime. [Commercial break] Smoke and Mirrors ANNOUNCER: PriimeTitne. Now from Washington, Sam Donaldson.

DONALDSON: Good evening,and welcome. Diane Sawyer's on assignment. We'll tell youi more about that later. Tonight we begin with a look at smoking and health and how the tobacco companies have worked over the years to confuse the public on, this vital, issue. Now, let me say right up front that I personally have been, crusading against smoking for more than 20 years. And believe me, we ex-smokers can be worse than reformed drunks. I am not, unbiased when it comes to believing the government, warning carried on every cigarette pack about the hazards of smoking. But none of us here at PrimeTime had, prejudged the subject of our report tonight. We conducted4four-month-long investigation which found that for 40 years the tobacco companies have waged a carefully orchestrated campaign to hide the_ttuth in order to fend off regulatiinn and lawsuits and keep the profits pouring in. It all began, we discovered„back in, the early 1950s. [voice-over] Worri ed about smoking? Listen to the tobacco indus ~, over the years and you won't be quite so worriied.` ._._---.---- 1 st TOBACCO COMPANY SPOKESMAN: It has notbeen establlished'that cigarette smoking- 2nd TOBACCO COMPANY SPOKESMAN: The bottom line isthatl we simply don't know- 3rd TOBACCO COMPANY SPOKESMAN: It is not' a closed case. The fact is- 4th,TOiBACCO COMPANY SPOKESMAN: I dbnit know that they're harmful! or harml~ss. What hrn saying is that- 1 st TOBACCO COMPANY SPOKESMAN: When the answers are found, Ii think this. industry is going to come out all right. Dr. ANTHONY COLUCCI: Quit this lying! Quit telling this lie! It's over. It's 1992. Would you plbase come into the 20th, century before we get to the 2'1st, for God's sake? DONALDSON: [voice- over] Meet, Dr. Anthony Colucei~ the highest-ranking t,obaccoo insider ever to break ranks wiith the industry's line. Colucci, a toxicologist4 was the director of smoking and health at the R.J. Reynolds tobacco company, the country's second' largest. His story is explosive. [interviewing] But they know the trut'h. Dr. COLUCCI: Of course they know the truth. DONALDSON: Cigarettes kill you. Dr. COLUCCI: They knew it back then. Yes, they kill you. DONALDSON: [voice-over] The year was 1953. Ike was in the White House and more than 50 milllion Americans smoked cigarettes. But it was also a time when major studies linking cigarettes and lung cancer first made national news. WALTER WINCHELL: Every one of the studies reported that there is an association between excessive smoking and cancer of the lung. DONALDSON: [voice-over] And the cigarette giants, according toltheir 1

public-relations company, were "frantically alarmed." [on carnera], In a panic, they gathered here an the Plaza Hotel in December, 1953, to plot their strategy, one drafted by the public-relations firrn of Hi1QIand Knowlton. According to the master plan, the key to the strategy would be the creation of'a supposedly independent research, council„ostensibly to pursue the facts about smoking and health. [voice-over] In January, 1954, with much fanfare, the cigarette companies announced the formation of a Tobacco Research Council„placing full-page ads in more than 400 newspapers which said the tobaccolindinstry considered their customers' health, "paramount to every other consideration" of thei'r business. But over the years the Council for Tobacco Research, or CT'R;, appears to have made its paramount business providing the scientific cover for the industry's line that there is no conclusive proof that smoking causes illness or death, a line Dr. Colucci says the industry knew to be untrue. Dr. COLUCCI: Here's what was tbld'to me when I got to Reynolds Tobacco Company in 1967. "If any of tihetobacco company executives ever come and visit you, dion'tmention the word cancer' tothem." DONALDSON: You were toJdiby an official of the company- Dr. COLUCCI: Yes, my supervisor.. DONALDSON: -never to mention cancer when top, company, oofficials came by? Dr. COLUCCIr Absolutely. It was verboten. It was absolutely forbidden. So now they can honestly go up before Congress, before anybody they want, in a court;of law, and say,, "Nobody ever told me it caused cancer." DONALDSON: [voice-over] In 1968, Dr. Cohicci was picked to head a team of R.J. Reynolds scientists investigating,the effects of smoking on the lung. He says the research was making,progt1ess. [int+erviewing) You were getting close to a mechanism that wouldlhave demonstrated conclusively that what? Dr. COLUCCI: That cigarettes destroy lung tissue, how they destroy lung tissue, how they predispose it to chronic bronchitis and emphysema and' ultimately to cancer. DONALDSON: [voice-over] By March of 11970, Colucci says, his team was near a breakthrough. Dr. COLUCCI: And one day we just' all were called into a room and fired. DONALDSON: Why? ~ Dr. COLUCCI: Because.they didn't w ow the truth: I mean, basically, I think, it's just sort of ai conspiracy of disinfdrmaJ'nSri: So`how can you carry on a conspiracy of disinformation when sitting in your back pocket or in your laboratory, as a matter of fact, or in the irninds of your scientists, Sam, is alll this data? Just pretend it doesn't exist. WILLIAM SIMMONS: There were all kinds of rumors going aroundi I have seen no evidence to that effect, that we were dismissed because we had found anything that was damaging or that we were on the brink of finding anything that was damaging,

DONALDSON: [voice-over] Dr. William Simmons, a biochemist, is the current director of smoking and health at R.J. Reynolds. He was part of Dr. Colucci's '60s research team and he says the unit was shut down because of a company reorganization, plus it was more efficient to db the resear&outside: Mr. SIIvIIMONS: Every company, any company, wants to~make a profit. They're in business to make a profit. But they also have a responsibility to their customers to produce the best product that t'hey, can with regard to1 all of the allegations that you're!talking,about, and this company is highly concerned with that. PLANT IvIAI*1AGER: Sam{ this is where the process of making,cigarettes- DONALDSON: [voiee-over]I,Tounderstand whyR.J. Reynoldssay:s!.i't's so, concerned, you only have to visit their plant in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where they make Winston, Salem, Doral; and Camel cigarettes. That's money you see coming off the assernbly line, big money. This one machine alone makes 8,000 cigarettes per minute. On this four-acre factory floor Reynolds makes300. million - yes„3I00 mill'ion, - cigarettes a, day, just one plant of just one tobacco company. Last': year Americans spent, an estimated $47.3 billion on cigarettes, which may help explain why, despite the hazard labels on its own ciigaretite packs, R.J. Reynolds insists there's still no proof that cigarettes kiUIL [interviewing] Let me read you this warning. It says, "SurgeonGeneral"s warning; Smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema and may complicate pregnancy." Mr. SIMIvIONS` Yes, sir, that's true. DONALDSON: It doesn't say smoking might do this. It says it does it. Mr. SIMMONS': I don't think that it has been proved to cause these diseases. Now, I agree that it's a very strong risk factor for certain human, diseases. DONALDSON: Like what4 cancer? - Mr. SIMMONS: Lung,canaer, emphysema, and cardiovascular disease. DONALDSON: You can't get worse than that, can you? Mr. SIMMONSt Well, they're certainly terrible diseases, but at the same time, the scientific evidence is still lacking that shows causation. Dr. CO'LUCCIr Giveni all the compelling evidence that's out there,,I cannot believe, in my heart'of hearts,,that anyone with two brain cells torub together, regardless of what their position is in the tobacco industry, believes that, because it's counteri.ntuitive and it's a lie. DONALDSON: [voice-over] To back up his contention that: the company wasn't trying to hide anything,, Dr. Simnons showed us that the company had retained notebooks from the 1960s research work, but he wouldn't let us lbok inside them, explnining the information was a company trade secret. Whether they shed! any 1'ight on Colucci's contention that the unit was shut down because the company didn't want to know the truth, a contentioni Simmons disputes, we couldn't tell..

But two~other former R.J. Reynolds scientists who were also let go back in 1970 have stepped forward' in interviews with PrimeTime to back up Colucci. JOSEPH BUT!IGARNER': As far as saying that, he is trwi'sting, the story- no way. Lsaw the same thing that- DONALDSON: [voice-over] Joseph Bumgarner was Cblucci's principal assistant. [linterviewing] But youire convincedlthat for many years these companies have known that their productcauses serious injury to health. Mr. BUIyiGARWER': Beyond a shadow of a doubt. ROBERT BRUCE: I'think over the years they have just continuously withheld the truth and not told the American publlic- DONALD'SOIV: [voice- over]!Scientist, Dr. Robert Bruce actually was re-hired by R.J: Reynolds for a time in the 1'980s to help company lawyers defend'against tobacco lawsuits. [interviewing] So they've maintained a tissue of lies for decades and now they're caughtin, the web. Mt. BRUCE: It certainly is a web of deceptiion. It'd probably make aiblack widow jealous. DOhiALDSOhI` [voice-over] At the web's center, the Council for Tobacco ResearchL Dr. COLUCCI: The real purpose of the Council for Tobacco Research; in my opinion, is to develbp studies and to develop strategic databases which allow the industry to continue to apply its smoke and mirrors. MARK EDELL: The Council for Tobacco Research was a fraud. DONALDSON: [voice-over] Attorney Mark Edell may be publiic enemy number one as far as the tobacco companies are concerned. Inibringing,al number of lawsuits against the industry over the years, he has uncovered internal dbcuments that are highly damaging to the Council's credibility. Mr. EDELL: CTR was a front. It was a shield and it wasn't calculated to, leadi tioo any relevant information on cigarette smoking and health. DONALDSON: [voice-over] Consider these documents from the industry's conBdential~ files. Item - CTR memorandum which says the program has "canried its fair share of the public relations load ini providing materials to stamp out' the brush fires as they arose."' Item - Hand-written notes belonging to the former chief executive of Lorilard which say, "CTR is the best and cheapest insurance the tobacco industry can buy and without it the industry ... would be dead." Iterni - The former vice president of the Tobacco Institute, the industry's trade group, boasts that' the "holding strategy" over the years has been "brilliantly conceived and executed ... creating doubt about the health issue without actually denying it." Evidence like this ledrfederall judge H. Lee Sarokin i in a, written opinion to state, "the tobacco industry may be the ki.ng, of concealment, and disinformation." Last year, after three attempts, the industry succeeded in having Judge Sarokin removed from hearing a pending tobacco case. The appeals court said it fiound' no bias on his part, but wanted to avoid! the appearance of'partiality. The judge had written that a jury might reasonably

find that the cigarette companies had engaged in~ani "industry-wide conspiracy ... vast in its scope, devious in its purpose and deva5tating,in its results." KENNETH WARNER: This is one of the most reprehensiblie examples of corporate behavior gone wrong that has ever existed in the history of this country. DONALDSON: [voice-over] Dr. Kenneth Warner is a professor of public healthiat the University of Michigan and a leading expert on the tobacco indiustry. Mr. WARNER: The fact is that'the publfc as & whole underestimates the risk of smoking; and srnokers ini particular underestimate that risk andlbelieve that it doesn't apply to 1 them personally. D'ONALDSON: [woice-over]IPbofessor Warner believes consumers don't necessarily understand the risks because the industry has spent 40'years andi untold~ billions raising dbubts about the dangers. Mr. WARNER': Now, today they're spending, over $4 billioni a year - thaVs, you know, that's well over $100 a second [snapping his fiingers], just like that, they'he spending $ 1100: very second - trying,to convince people that smokers are "alive with pleasure" or that smokers are youthful, healthy, vigorous people. DONALDSON: [voice-over] That's what the ads have always triied4o do: People want to be like the rmodels: Consider Janet Sackman, a young beauty discovered more than 45' years ago on a New York beach, who modeled for Lucky Strike cigarettes. "Smoke a Lucky," the ad says, "to feel your level best." Meet Janet Sackrnan today. [interviiewing] At' one time, you were a walking, advertisement, for cigarettes. W'hat are you a walking advertisement for today? JANET SACKMAN: Cancer. DONALDSON: [voice- over] After smoking 33 years, Sackman has lost! her larynx and' part of a liung, to cancer. And then there are the famous Marlboro ads. In the rmid-1970s„Philip1 Morris attempted to suppress a British television, docurnentary about how real cowboys and westerners were dying of smoking-related diseases. COWBOY: [Thames Television]! Wel!1, it's hard to describe, except when the pain: is actually with you. I just have to stopland gasp for breath. WAYNE McLAKEN: I'm here today to add~ my voice to- DONALDSON: [voice-over] But Philip Morris couldn't stop one of its cowboy models fromi speaking out. Mlr. McLAREN: If you i have an IQ approaching that of a hamster, you've got to be able to believe that it's going to kill you, or it' can killi you. DONALDSON: [voice-over] Cowboy stunt manlWayne McLaren smoked for 30 years and modeled for Marlboro in 1984L Three years ago he was diagnosed with lung cancer.. Mr. McLAREN: I didn't know at the beginning really all the ramifications from smoking that could happen to someone, but now I know. You know, but it's a little late novv..

Ms. SACKMAN: [to patien2]' Marcella, how many years did you smoke? 1 st PATIENT: Thirty years. Ms. SACKMAN: Thirty years.. 2nd PATIENT: Thirty years. -DO'NALDSON: [voice-over] Today Janet Sackrnan teaches other former smokers who have lost their larynxes to speak. , IVIs. SACKMAN: I want, people to know that you could get this and!you could get worse from smoking. Very few people get away with it. DONALDSON: [voice-over] Marlboro man Wayne McLaren didn't. He died of7ung, and brain cancer last Jiuly at the age of 51. The federal Centers for Disease Control estimated that in 1988 cigarette smoking killed some 434,000 Americans, but to this day the tobacco companies' line is- well, listen to Dr. Simmons of R'.Ji. Reynolds. Mr. SIMMONS: We don't know, whether that number is real or not. DONALD'SQN: If it's not434,00N'roughly, what number do you use? Mr. S'1QvIMONS: No one knows what that, number may or may not, be.. DONALDSON: Zero? Mr. SIMMONS: That's the whole pointi. DONALDSON: Zero?, Mr. SIMMONS: We dbn't know that. We don'tknow- DONALDSiO'N: Are you suggesting to our audience tlnat' maybe no one has died from smoking,cigarettes in, the: United States in 1988? Ivln SIM1v1ONS': Ii don't know. DONALDSON: If the tobacco companies still say they dbn't know whether their product, kills anyone, how credible is their contention that they are doing everything they can to f nd out? That story when!we come back. ANNO'UNCER': Still ahead, the super-collider. Already controversial, now it may cost hundreds of millions more than expected. Also, should people like this lose their children because they're physically disabled? And next, part two of our tobacco investigation, a potentially llife-saving product that was purposely kept off the rnarket _. DONALDSON: Why would the legal department want to kill'a projject that would develop a safe cigarette?

ANNOUNCER: When PrimeTime continues. [Commercial break] DONALDSON: This is the story of a new cigarette that isn't on the market. I:rn some ways, what you're about to see makes the tobacco companies efforts over the yeans to suggest they are working on the health issue by introducing filtensr NARRATOR: [Kool Cigarettes commercial] Snow-fresh filter Kool- DONALDSON: -by marketRng low-tar products seem only efforts at deception,, rather than sincere measures to protect smokers. If'the tobacco companies have known for years about the danger of their product, did they do nothing to attermpr to fix the problem? Well, consider what happened here at the Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company in Durham, Nbrthi Carolina, where al revolutionary new cigarette that might have been, safer was deliberately withheid~ from the market. [voice-over] Dr. James Mold, who now lives in retirement near Durham, went too work for Liggett, maker of Chesterf eld, Eve, Lark, and L&M cigarettes, back in 1955. Working in this researchi building, he was assigned to identify the! ingredients in cigarette smoke that caused cancer in lab mice.JAMES MOLD: Once we found what the materials present were that were causing,the cancers on mice skin, our next task was to say, "Wel'I, what do we do about this?" DONALDSON: And the company executives were alll for this at that point? Mr: MO'LD; Everything,was„ "Go ahead," yes. DONALDSON: They wanted to see if the could developialsafe cigarette. Mr. MOLD: Correct. DONALDSON: All right, what happened?. Mr. MOLD: We did. DONALDSON: [voice-over] Dr. Mold spent 25 years workingon the "XA" projiect4 developing,aidifferentcigarette, specially treated with chemicals that he says caused no cancer in lab animals. [interviewing] So by 1980 you had developed a. cigarette that would be safe to smoke. Well, why don't I fin& this in the stores t+aday? Mr. MOLD: Well, that's a good question. DONALDSON: [voice-over] Dr. Moldlsays when the XA cigarettes were finally ready for production and marketing in 1'978, company lawyers stepped in and scuttled the project. [interviewing] Why would the legal department want to kill a project that would develop a safe cigarette? Mr. MOLD: They were afraid~ that putting such a cigarette out would'reflect on j~ the products that they had been putting out and for which they had been, under ~ litijgatiion: ~ DONALDSON: So that rather than, develop a safe cigarette that would result in ~O . this kind of adverse courtroom situation; they were willirng to continue to ~ N ~ ~ .

market a cigarette that' killed people?. - Mr. MOLD: Well, that's puttinig it bluntly, but I guess it"s correctL DONALDSON~:~ Well, how would you put it, Doctor? Mr. MOLD: I don't know how else to put: it. _ Mr. WARNER: They have made a lot of prof'tand it hascost's an enormous number of lives. DONALDSON: [voice-over] University of Michigan tobacco expert Kenneth Warner. Mr. WARNER: To prodtuce a less dangerous product means you"re acknowledging thatt your prodioct' is dangerous, your current prodiuct is dange.rous, and they couldn't do that, didn't want to do that. DONALDSON: (voiice-over] Liggett told PrimeTime in a statement it couldn't comment on all this specifcally because of'pending litigation. But in the past the company has cited various reasons for scuttling the project, incliuding,taste problems and unresolved questions about healthieffects. But an, internal Liggett document introduced'in a court case states, "Any domestic activity will increase risk of cancer litagation on existing,products. U.S. manufacture for export will be less risky." In the end, the company eliectedIo continue to market their existing cigarettes and no one else has stepped ~ forward, publicly to buy Liggett's patent on the XA. [bn camera] Instead, the companies have spent millions: hghting lawsuits fi'led against them and they've been amazingly successful. Over the years, in more than 300 cases; they haven't paid out a penny: And, why is that? Well, for one thing, ever since 1966 when, the surgeon general's report first came out4 courts and juries have ruled that, people smoke at, their own risk. After alll4 if it says right on the pack that smoking causes lung cancer, don't come asking for money because you ignored the wanning. But Dr. Colucci says there are: other reasons why the companies have been so suceessful. [linterviewing] How do you defend against the obvious? Dr. COLUCCI: You set a level of 'scientific proof that's unachievable. DONALDSON: [voice-over] Colucci should'.know. He was brought back in 1980 to help Reynolds lawyers devise courtroom defense strategies, which he did, until they parted ways again in 1992. Dr. COLUCCI: What you do is, you say, "Inlorder for you to prove to me thatt cigarettes killed this person, these are the scientific hurdles you're going to go through. You 1 must do this, you must do thi's, you must' do"- knowing, full well - and what a, caper - knowing full well that, science can, never achieve that, level. DONALDSON: [voice-over] Colucci won't talk specifics, saying that would violate confidentiality agreements he signed with I+Z.J. Reynolds. But in, general', he says, the approach centers on suggesting the cancer or illness may have been caused by something,else- say, hereditary factors, diet or, as the company sometimes suggests; air pollution. Dr. Coliuceilsays cigarette smoke is 200,000 times more potent in causing liang,cancer than air pollution.

Dr. COLUCCI: It's possible. Any thing.is possible, Saim But 200,000 to U? Forgett it. DONALDSON: [Ivoice-over) Still, when presented by the indus 's courtroom team, such tactics work. Attorney Mark Edell has come the closest to beating the companies ini a lawsuit in the case of Rose Cipollone. Mr. EDELL: Rose Cipollbne, during her deposit2bn, said if it realily had been, proven that cigarette smoking, causedl lung cancer, do you think the tobacco companies would have soldiit and do you think the government would have let them sell it? DONALDSON: [voice-over] Rose Cipollone, the New Jersey housewife with lung cancer who sued three cigarette companies, died before the trial ended, but the jury awarded her husband $400,000, finding,that Liggett & Myers bore some responsibility for her death. On appeal, the decision was reversed. And'though the Supreme Court said the case could be retried, Mark Edell and his associates, having already spent millions of dollars, just gave up. Mr. EDELL: The firms have just come to the conclusion that they can't financially absorb this litigation. Dr. COLUCCI: And that's part of the strategy - wear them dbuvn. And they wear down a jury, same way. Days and days of testimony about statist2cs and obfuscate, obfuscate, obfuscate. And the bottom line is, it's just a war of attrition. DONALD'SON: [voice-over] We wanted'to speak to the tobacco companies. Five of the six - Philip Morris, American Tobacco, Brown and Williamson, Lorilard, and ~' Liggett & Myers - said no 1TV interview, as did the Council for Tobacco Research and the industry's trade association, the Tobacco Institute. Only R.J. ~ Reynolds agreed to see us, where we put the questibn to Dr. William Simmons about charges of a40-year-long industry conspiracy to hide the truth. Mr. SIMMONS: I have- I've heard allegatibns to thateffiect. Mr. Donaldson, Ii han+e seen no evidence to that effect. DONALDSON`. Doctor, that's a lawyer's answer, "I've seen no evidence." Mr. SIMMONS: But Mr. Donaldson, if Pve seenino evidence, it's about the only answer Tcan give. DONALDSON: Well, how do you think the audience is going to take it when I say, "Here is the director of smoking and health" - you're not some little fish, you're not some guy just been hired, you're the director of smoking, and'lhealth at RJR - who says to me, "I"ve seen no evidence there's a conspiracy," rather than, "No, Mr. Donaldson, there is not a conspiracy to hide the truth." Mr. SIMQvIONS: All right, how about this? Tb the best of my knowledge, to my ability to know, there is no conspiracy. DONALDSON: [voice-over] But there is an effort by R.J. Reynoids to silence irts critics. It has gone after two of PrimeTime's whistle- blowers. The day after he spoke with us, Dr. Robert Bruce was served_with a restraining order to.