153 



Mr. Waxman. Your position is that none of your companies are 

 using those patents? 



Mr. Whitley. My position is that use of those patents would be 

 totally inconsistent with the manufacturing process that each of 

 the companies has described as what it follows in the written state- 

 ments that were submitted for the record today. 



Mr. Waxman, If the Chief Executive Officer of Philip Morris were 

 here, we could ask him about these patents, we could ask whether 

 R.J. Reynolds, Philip Morris do things like adding a proportion of 

 nicotine indirectly to the tobacco. 



Mr. Whitley. Mr. Chairman, if you would care to submit those, 

 we would be glad to submit those to the companies and let them 

 respond. 



Mr. Waxman. Come on. You knew we were holding this hearing 

 today on the issue of whether nicotine is being manipulated. 



You don't know the answer to this question? You don't know 

 whether they are manipulating it because you don't know whether 

 they are using these patents. Is that your testimony? 



Mr. Spears. May I respond to that, Mr. Chairman? 



You are citing patents that involve the addition of nicotine. You 

 have statements from each company, and I made the statement 

 with respect to my company, that there is no addition of nicotine. 

 That would indicate that none of those patents you are citing is 

 being used. 



Mr. Waxman. Do you know whether the nicotine levels can be 

 manipulated from what would otherwise be in the blend or the 

 product itself? 



Mr. Spears. By blending tobacco is the only method of manipula- 

 tion that is being used, yes. 



Mr. Waxman. Do you know whether the nicotine levels can be 

 adjusted upward? 



Mr. Spears. By blending? 



Mr. Waxman. By blending, by spraying, by any other changes in 

 the tobacco product itself 



Mr. Spears. They cannot be adjusted upward except by blending 

 different tobacco types. I don't know what you mean by upward. 



Mr. Waxman, We have patents by. other companies, not by your 

 company, but by Philip Morris and others, where they can add nic- 

 otine even to the filter and the paper. Why would they want to do 

 that? 



Mr. Spears. That is a patent. They are not doing that. If they 

 were doing it, if would be counter to the statements that they have 

 made that they are not doing it. 



Mr. Waxman. Why would they want to study it? 



Mr. Spears. I have already explained that there are individuals 

 in laboratories who carry out all kinds of work for all kinds of pur- 

 poses, and we would need to examine the specific patent and talk 

 to the investigators and the individual who applied for the patent 

 as to why. 



Mr. Waxman. I can't believe your answer to me. That is just so 

 insincere. They are doing this because they are in business to make 

 money. Why would they want to have all these patents that allow 

 them to manipulate the nicotine level unless they wanted that op- 

 portunity to manipulate the nicotine level? 



