RJ Reynolds
Horton V. American Tobacco Co. Trial Testimony of Charles Lemaistre.
Fields
- Site
- Jones Day
- Author
- Lemaistre, C.
- Date Loaded
- 27 Feb 1998
- Box
- Rjr4094
- Request
- Minnesota
- Letter
- Request
- 19970311
- Letter
- Type
- FORMAL LEGAL DOCUMENT
- TESTIMONY
- UCSF Legacy ID
- nqn14d00
Document Images
1020
1
2 is needed, please contact me." Dr. Johnny B. Bills.
3 i will therefore -- I have released Mr.
4 Russell. I will therefore replace him by alternate
5 number 1, Mrs. Thomas B. Gantt.
6 MR. D. DAVIS: No objection.
7 THE COURT: Mr. Clerk, please file that
8 and put it in the Court file.
9 MR. UPSHAW: Judge, we want to put into
10 the record, before the jury comes back in, as the
11 Court knows we have heretofore challenged Ms. Gantt
12 and we do object to this change.
13 THE COURT: The objection is overruled.
14 You may bring the jury in.
15 Bring your next witness up.
16 MR. D. DAVIS: Do you want me to call him
17 before they come in.
18 THE COURT: Yes.
19 MR. D. DAVIS: Your Honor, we call at
20 this time Dr. Charles LeMaistre.
21 C H A_H L E S L e M A I S T R E, called as a
22 witness, having been first duly sworn by the
23 Court, was examined and testified as follows:
24 MR. D. DAVIS: We are right now, aren't
25 we, on our jury count.
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2 meant that whatever we were suspecting as a cause,
3 had to proceed or be in a timely fashion to the
4 occurrence of that disease, and this is important in
5 this particular instance because, for a very long
6 period of time, it was not appreciated how long it
7 took for carcinoma of the lung to development the
8 fact that it took more than a decade and could take
9 as long as a decade and a half to two decades of for
10 the maximum production of lung cancer after a heavy
11 smoking of cigarettes misled a lot of people back in
12 the 1940s and 1950s but that association on a
13 temporal relationship, a time base, time and time
14 again was established and has been reaffirmed
15 consistently.
16 And then the last one, of course, would
17 have to deal with what is called coherence of the
18 association, and basically this means that there are
19 no significant findings that would overturn the
20 association and none were found in any of the areas
21 which 4ee concluded in the chapters of this book.
22 Q. Dr. LeMaistre, for how many months did
23 the work of the advisory committee to the Surgeon
24 General continue?
25 A. As I recall, it was about a year and a
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2 representatives of the tobacco industry during the
3 course of the preparation of this report?
4 A. No, sir, we did not.
5 Q. Did the committee allow anyone other than
6 committee members to sit in on the key decisions that
7 were made?
8 A. No, sir.
9 Q. Was it restricted to members of the
10 committee?
11 A. On the decision making process?
12 Q. Yes, sir.
13 A. Yes. The staff to the committee was in
14 the room, but they were not involved in the decision
15 making process.
16 Q. Did the committee receive for
17 consideration information supplied by the Tobacco
18 Institute?
19 A. The request was made, and I happened to
20 have made the request specifically to the chairman at
21 one time to invite testimony from the tobacco
22 industries and from the Tobacco Institute.
23 It is my understanding that we did not
24 get that particular form of cooperates, if you will,
25 and that they chose, I believe, to submit information
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2 by the medical profession or the scientific body that
3 would disprove that relationship.
4 Q. Dr. LeMaistre, yesterday before you were
5 here Dr. La Salle Leffall was on the witness stand,
6 and I want to show you, sir, a book which he was
7 handed entitled, Encyclopedia America.
8 MR. UPSHAW: Americana.
Q. Encyclopedia Americana, and I want to
10 refer you, Doctor, if you would take the book, I want
11 to refer you to page 70. Would you turn to page 70
12 of that book, please.
13 A. Yes, sir, I have it.
14 Q. Were you the original author of that
15 chapter?
16 A. Yes, sir.
17 Q. In approximately what year did you submit
18 that to the Encyclopedia Americana?
19 A. The original copy.
20 Q. The original copy?
21 -A. Best recollection I have is in the late
22 1970s.
23 Q. Doctor, was this prior to the time that
24 adenocarcinoma had been causally linked to smoking?
25 A. At the time of the original article,
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2 once. It occurred repeatedly in cigarette smokers
3 and that lung cancer appeared as a consequence in
4 those particular people whether a direct causal
5 relationship at that time was known but nonetheless,
6 the repetitive appearance or consistency of it was
7 one thing that we used to measure.
8 Q. What were some of the others, Dr.
9 LeMaistre?
10 A. The strength of the association and it
11 comes out in this particular instance, it was between
12 10 and 12 times, and epidemiologic terms, that is
13 very strong. That is a multiple of 10 to 12 times
14 greater risk for the smoker than the nonsmoker.
15 Then the next one would be the
16 specificity, could the carcinoma, for instance, in
17 question be reproduced by the agent at the same
18 site? In other words, if it was agent X, did it
19 produce a carcinoma here one time and a carcinoma
20 there the next.
21 - The way cigarette smoking, we saw
22 reproducible carcinomas in specific areas, lung
23 cancer and bladder cancer and esophageal cancer and
24 throat cancer, time and time again the evidence
25 showed that. Then the temporal relationship, that
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2 Q. Does this show in the forward here that
3 the fact that you were one of the members of that
4 committee?
5 A. It does show that I served two years in
6 that capacity.
7 Q. What were those years?
8 A. 1964 to 1966.
9 Q. For how many years did this study
10 continue?
11 A. It is my impression that the study
12 continued at least through 1969, at least I am
13 familiar with a report from this group of which I was
14 no longer a member that confirmed all of the 1964
15 Surgeon General's findings.
16 Q. I wanted to ask you, sir, when this was
17 published, did it in any way alter any of the
18 conclusions that had been reached by the advisory
19 committee to the Surgeon General?
20 A. No, sir. I am not aware of any
21 signif-icant conclusions or any others that it
22
23
24
25
altered.
Q.
Did it in any way alter the conclusion
that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer?
Ln
m
A. No, sir. `'
00
m
m
w
N
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2 adenocarcinoma was still predominantly confined to
3 women and we were not certain of the relationship on
4 a causal base at that time.
5 I will call to your attention that one of
6 the confusing factors was that women had taken up
7 cigarette smoking a number of years after men
8 unfortunately engaged in the experiment.
9 As a consequence, the evidence was not
10 unshakeable and we did refer to it in this, but I
11 don't think we concluded any direct association.
12 Q. Doctor, I want you to turn to page 72?
13 A. All right, sir.
14 Q. I will ask you to look over in the area
15 that has been highlighted, and I will ask you, sir,
16 when was that document resubmitted to the
17 encyclopedia for publication?
18 A. The most recent?
19 Q. Yes.
20 A. This was submitted in late 1986, and was
21 published, as I recall, in 19 -- mid-1987, or so.
'1%
44 Q. Was there any error called to the
23 attention of*the Encyclopedia Americana after that
24 book was published?
25 A. Yes, there was.
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2 compilation.
3 MR. UPSHAW: So stipulated.
4 Q. Doctor, I want to ask you, is there any
5 carcinogen that The American Tobacco Company has
6 added to non-filtered Pall Mall cigarettes during
7 this period of time?
8 A. When I looked at this list I spotted two
9 substances that I wanted to
10 MR. BLACKMON: Your Honor, may we
11 approach the bench, please?
12 THE COURT: Yes.
13 MR. BLACKMON: This testimony before --
14 here it is. This is not --
15 MR. WILLIAMS: He was not qualified --
16 MR. D. DAVIS: He is stating his basis
17 why this cigarette causes lung cancer and this is
18 included in his basis. You had every right to
19 question him about it and you didn't. You didn't ask
20 him for it. This man is entitled.
21 - MR. BLACKMON: We relied on this.
22 THE COURT: What is this? The answer to
23 the 26-B?
24 MR. D. DAVIS: That they took a whole
25 day's deposition.
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2 in?
3 A. I really am knot certain at the moment.
4 I looked at them just as I was sitting there and
5 there are two pages full of them in my curriculum
6 vitae which I have here, if you wish, but I can't
7 give you an accurate count. Let's say more than 20.
8 Q. Do you hold membership in the American
9 Medical Association?
10 A. Yes, sir, I do.
11 Q. How about the Georgia Trudeau Society?
12 A. I am no longer active in the Georgia
13 Trudeau Society. I still have my license to practice
14 in Georgia and Texas and am a member of the Texas
15 Medical Association.
16 Q. Doctor, in the AMA, is there a committee
17 known as the educational research foundation
18 committee on research on tobacco and health?
19 A. There was, yes, sir.
20 Q. Did you serve as a member of that
21 committee for a period of time?
22 A. Yes. As I recall, beginning in 1966 or
23 1967, I was requested to join that committee and
24 served for a two year period on that committee.
25 Q. Have you also been a member of the
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2 smoke from other people, I would cite their report in
3 the early 1980s showing that adenocarcinoma had risen
4 to great heights and was the most prevalent one and
5 that was an incremental decision and only ending in
6 the 1980s were we able to agree that that information
7 was final and very conclusive from a number of
8 scientific publications that are referred to as it
9 came along in each of these reports.
10 But the important thing, I think, in
11 answering your question is that I know of nothing
12 that any of those reports have overturned of major
13 significance in the original Surgeon General's
14 report.
15 Q. Doctor, are you aware of any
16 authoritative scientific study that has been
17 conducted in the past 15 or 20 years that has
18 established that cigarette smoking does not cause
19 lung cancer?
20 A. I would have to indicate that my answer
21 would be based upon, I know of no publication that
22 has scientific credibility, that has done so. I know
23 of many authoritarian statements to the contrary, but
24 I do not think they offer proof that is accepted, so
25 the answer is, I know of none that have been accepted
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