164 



as an extremely toxic compound which is easily absorbed by the 

 human body; and I think this is an additional area we ought to be 

 following up. 



Mr. Waxman. Thank you, Mr. Wyden. 



Dr. Raffle, this is your second appearance before our committee. 

 You were here in 1988 and you testified then that — on behalf of the 

 tobacco industry, in opposition to the Surgeon General's finding 

 that nicotine was addictive, and apparently your views and your 

 client haven't changed in 5 years; is that correct? 



Mr. Raffle. My views haven't changed. I don't have a client. 



Mr. Waxman. You not being paid a consulting fee for your ap- 

 pearance today? 



Mr. Raffle. I am only being paid the amount of money that I 

 am losing in my practice today. 



Mr. Waxman. And who is paying you that amount? 



Mr. Raffle. The people who asked me — Mr. Whitley is. 



Mr. Waxman. Mr. Whitley, Dr. Raffle is here at your request to 

 tell us that he doesn't think that nicotine in cigarettes is addicting. 

 You stated on the record that you don't believe cigarettes are ad- 

 dictive and nicotine is addictive. Do you know which company it 

 was that did the studies in the 1980's that indicated that nicotine 

 was addictive, and which company suppressed that study from 

 being published? 



Mr. Whitley. Mr. Chairman, what was said here this morning 

 by Dr. Kessler is the first suggestion I have ever heard of anything 

 like that. 



Mr. Waxman. So you would have no knowledge of 



Mr. Whitley. I have no knowledge of the incident that he re- 

 ferred to. 



Mr. Waxman. Dr. Spears, do vou have any knowledge of that? 



Mr. Spears. I am sorry. Would you repeat the question? 



Mr. Waxman. Dr. Kessler said that he had information of a com- 

 pany that did some studying about the nicotine addictive qualities, 

 and once they found out, through looking at whether the animals 

 seemed to respond to that addiction, they suppressed that study. 

 Do you know which company that was? 



Mr. Spears. I have no information. 



Mr, Waxman. We are going to get that information, and unless 

 there is a strong reason, as I indicated earlier, to keep that from 

 being made public, we are going to make it public; and perhaps we 

 will get the people from that company here to talk about it. 



But it would seem to me that if that study did take place and 

 at least one company knew that nicotine was addictive, they might 

 have told the rest of the industry about it as well; or they might 

 have acted on that by trying to manipulate the nicotine levels in 

 order to make people addicted to that cigarette product. 



Now, Dr. Spears, you said that nicotine is not being manipulated, 

 but in the manufacturing process, is there ever a time when nico- 

 tine is added? 



Mr. Spears. Added means additional? 



Mr. Waxman. No, nicotine levels are in the manufacturing proc- 

 ess, is there a time when nicotine is reduced to the point where 

 they add nicotine to where it would have been otherwise in the to- 

 bacco? 



