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RJR INTEROFFICE CORRESPONDENCE TO: Or. A. Nallacs Rayab FROM: Johnnie R. Hayes DATE: May 8, 1989 SUBJECT: PREMIER Comments at AICR Meeting &AY Recently, I attended the American Institute of Cancer Research Grant Review Panel meeting in Washington, DC. This panel con- sists of a number of members with international reputation in cancer research, especially diet-nutrition and cancer. The subject of the withdrawal of PREMIER from the market came up during an informal discussion. Several of the panel members expressed regret that PREMIER had been withdrawn from the market. A few of the panel members stated that they believed R. J. Reynolds had done the "right thing" in attempting to market the cigarette. During a previous meeting I had provided copies of the scientific monograph to many of the panel members, at their request. It was obvious that several of the panel members had reviewed the monograph and a few had looked at it in some detail. It was the general opinion that R. J. Reynolds should be congratulated for providing the scientific data to the scientific community. Several members stated that the monograph was well done and informative. Dr. Adrianne Rogers, Professor and Associate Chairman of the Department of Pathology, Boston University School of Medicine, stated that she was impressed enough with our testing program to use the monograph in one of her courses as an example of good toxicology. As might be expected, most of the comments were prefaced with "don't quote me, but ..." I had the opportunity to discuss several aspects of our program with Dr. Elizabeth Weisburger, who recently retired from the National Cancer Institute. She attended our Gradient presenta- tion in Washington. She stated that she thought the presenta- tions had been excellent and she appreciated our candor and the detail with which we presented the data. She stated that she had told Richard Adamson, Director of the Division of Cancer Etiology

at the NCI, that he should not send a letter to Frank Young in support of FDA regulation of PREMIER. Apparently, he did not take her advice. Again, she did not want to be quoted. My overall impression from this group of scientists is the monograph and the scientific presentations allowed us to present our data and convinced a number of important scientists about PREMIER. As we have discovered, these scientists will not generally make positive statements about PREMIER publicly. However, they generally have not made negative comments. It is my opinion that the provision of this data and new data will convince scientists about the attributes of PREMIER and is in the overall best interest of the Company. V fl r-y- O-LA -~1n 1 D , R a JRH:orm AICR.doc