Osdene, Thomas Stefan, Ph.D.
(Director of Science and Technology, Philip Morris [1986]) Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry. Ten years of research when he started with PM in 1965. Worked in Chemical Research Division of PM 1965-66; Chemical and Biological Research Division 1966-69; Director of Research 1969-1984, also assumed independent position as Director of Research and Extramural Studies during these years; became Director of Science and Technology in 1984, reporting directly to Philip Morris USA Executive VP Mark Serrano. Involved with Center for Indoor Air Research (CIAR) 1988. Attended PM's Operation Downunder Conference in June, 1987. Retired 1993.Thomas Stefan Osdene was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, in December of 1927 and grew up in London, England. He received a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the University of London’s Institute of Cancer Research in 1955, with his dissertation involving the synthesis of anti-tumor compounds. He then moved to the United States to do post-doctoral research at Princeton University.
In 1956, Dr. Osdene was hired to work as a biochemist at the M. D. Anderson and Tumor Institute, where he continued his research on anti-tumor agents. He moved to Pennsylvania in 1959 and spent the next six years working for Wyeth Laboratories.
In 1965, he was hired by Philip Morris as Manager of Chemical Research. He joined the Chemical and Biological Research Division in 1966 and three years later was named the company’s Director of Research, a position he held for fifteen years. One of his responsibilities during these years was representing Philip Morris on the Tobacco Working Group.
Dr. Osdene’s responsibilities began to expand and change during the 1980s. In 1984, he assumed the newly created position of Director of Science and Technology and began reporting directly to Mark Serrano, Executive Vice President of Philip Morris USA. At some point, he also assumed the title of Director of Research and Extramural Studies. He also became involved with the company’s Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS) Advisory Group and the Center for Indoor Air Research during these years.
In assuming these new roles, Dr. Osdene became deeply involved in research on subjects that Philip Morris considered highly sensitive. According to some of his former colleagues, he became secretive about the results, even among his coworkers. Ian Uydess, a former Philip Morris scientist who became a whistle-blower for the Food and Drug Administration, characterized Osdene as “the keeper of the secrets.” William Farone, Philip Morris’s former director of applied research, added in 1998, “It is only recently that I have realized how widely [Dr. Osdene] was involved with the company and … how much he was doing that we didn’t know about.”
As internal industry documents have been released, they too have provided hints that Dr. Osdene went to considerable lengths to protect the secrecy of Philip Morris’s research. In one memorandum from the 1970s, he counseled that research “be carefully planned such that the results obtained should not be able to harm the industry.” He specifically advised that such topics as “developing new tests for carcinogenicity” and trying “to relate human disease to smoking” be avoided. Another memorandum in Dr. Osdene’s files appeared to go still further, requesting that important letters be delivered either to Cologne, Germany, or to his home, where he could “act on them and destroy.”
So what does Thomas Osdene say in response?
Throughout the 1980s, he remained a staunch defender of Philip Morris. In the landmark 1984 Cipollone case, Dr. Osdene testified in a deposition that he had seen no proof that smoking caused lung cancer and that there was still a legitimate controversy within the scientific community on the subject. He acknowledged that cigarette smoke does impair the pulmonary microphages in the lungs, but maintained that Philip Morris was working on design changes and hoped to reduce those risks.
Then he stopped talking. Shortly after Thomas Osdene’s retirement in 1993, allegations began to swirl that his involvement in keeping research secret amounted to criminal activity. According to these allegations, Dr. Osdene had deliberately shifted sensitive research abroad (at a European laboratory, INBIFO), filtered and suppressed the results by keeping them in his car or home, coded scientific documents so that only he could make sense of them, and destroyed documents if they were not favorable to Philip Morris’s interests. In 1996, FBI obtained a subpoena and searched his Richmond, Virginia, home for documents that would show the existence of a conspiracy.
Since that time, at the advice of his attorney, Thomas Osdene has declined to comment on his career at Philip Morris. He has been subpoenaed to testify in such cases as Falise, Dunn/Wiley, Blankenship and several of the Attorney General cases and has appeared, only to invoke his Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination. He has never been charged with any crime.
Dr. Osdene’s health has not been good for many years; in 1997, he testified that he suffered from diabetes, hypertension, cardiac episode, cancer of the bladder, high cholesterol, and cataracts. He reportedly also contracted emphysema as a result of having been a longtime heavy smoker. Nonetheless, he celebrated his eightieth birthday in 2007.
Synonyms
Osdene, Thomas S.Osdene, Thomas
Osdene, Thomas Kevin