Minnemeyer, Harry Joseph, Ph.D.
(Lorillard R&D Dept.; worked on nicotine augmentation project)Biographical Information:
Harry J. Minnemeyer was born in 1932, one of five children of Harry Lucas Minnemeyer (1906-2005) and the former Veronica Anna Odien (1907-1994). He grew up in Buffalo, New York, and stayed at home for college, spending two years at Canisius College and two years at the University of Buffalo. After writing a senior thesis entitled, "The Identification of an Ultraviolet Light Absorbing Component Isolated from a Sample of Human Urine," Minnemeyer remained at the University of Buffalo for his graduate work. In 1962 he earned his Ph.D. with a dissertation that bore the title, "The Synthesis of Some Pyrimidine Nucleosides and the Claisen Rearrangement of Some Alloxypyrimidines to C-Allylpyrimidines."
Minnemeyer went on to do post-doctoral work and then found work as a supervisor on a National Cancer Institute chemical synthesis contract and as a synthetic organic chemist for Stark Associates in Buffalo. In January of 1970 he was hired to work as a research chemist for Lorillard Tobacco Company by Alexander W. Spears, whom Minnemeyer had met while an undergraduate at the University of Buffalo. After five years at the Lorillard Research Center in Greensboro, North Carolina, Minnemeyer was promoted to research manager. In that capacity, he oversaw the research done in Greensboro, and when internal industry documents began to be made public it became clear that much of that research concerned the role of nicotine in the smoking experience.
Of particular interest was an April 13, 1977, memo to Spears in which Minnemeyer wrote, "Tobacco scientists know that physiological satisfaction is almost totally related to nicotine intake. The objective of the Research Department in this project has been to find how the nicotine delivery of the new product could be maximized." Those words took on added significance when Spears testified at trial that he did not believe nicotine to be addictive. Minnemeyer also oversaw animal smoke inhalation tests that were performed for Lorillard by Enviro Controls, Inc. Minnemeyer himself only testified in one health-related lawsuit.
Minnemeyer remained Director of Lorillard's Research Department until retiring in 1992. He has since lived quietly in retirement.
Sources:
Allan M. Brandt, The Cigarette Century: The Rise, Fall and Deadly Persistence of the Product that Defined America (New York: Basic Books, 2007).
"Deposition of HARRY J. MINNEMEYER, Ph.D., May 21, 1998, CALIFORNIA v. PHILIP MORRIS INC.". 21 May 1998.
http://tobaccodocuments.org/datta/MINNEMEYERH052198.html.
Richard Kluger, Ashes to Ashes: America's Hundred-Year Cigarette War and the Unabashed Triumph of Philip Morris (New York: Vintage Books, 1996).
Harry J. Minnemyer, "Present Status of the Nicotine Enrichment Project," April 13, 1977 memo to Alexander W. Spears III. http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/trs76b00 .