55 



maintained that nicotine is not addictive, and it is in cigarettes 

 only for its taste. 



Yet it is now clear that 10 years ago, the president of Philip Mor- 

 ris, the president of the company, visited your lab and actually wit- 

 nessed a rat injecting himself with nicotine. This rat was not doing 

 that because of the taste of nicotine, and the rat wasn't pressing 

 the lever to get more nicotine because of peer review. 



The rat was pressing this lever in order to self- administer nico- 

 tine because this was something that rat physiologically wanted. 

 And he was told by you that nicotine is a reinforcing drug that has 

 an abuse liability? Is that a correct statement? 



Mr. DeNoble. [Nodding affirmatively.] 



Mr. Waxman. What was the immediate result of the visit by 

 Shep Pollack? Were you told to continue your research? 



Mr. DeNoble. Actually, yes. Two weeks later we were given a 

 green light to just go ahead. We actually hired another person in, 

 a contract person. We were told that everything was fine and to 

 just run full force, and we did. So we just kept doing experiments. 



Mr. Waxman. This was the end of the year beginning in 1984. 

 And in April of 1984, Philip Morris made a decision to close down 

 the laboratory. Could you please recount for us the closing of the 

 lab? 



Mr. DeNoble. I believe it was the second Thursday. It was April 

 5th, the first Thursday, in 1984. It was at 3 in the afternoon, and 

 Dr. Charles, Jim, called me to his office and was telling me what 

 a great job we had done for the company. 



Quite frankly, I thought this was great and we were getting a 

 lot of accolades. I was getting a lot of accolades, and Paul. And he 

 said, "However, we are discontinuing animal research beginning 

 now." 



I was told that Paul had to come up and talk to him. And I was 

 basically to shut the equipment off; terminate the experiments, 

 even if they were ongoing; to kill all the animals the following day; 

 and that was the end. We were — our badges were discontinued ac- 

 cess to the research center. By the following Monday, we couldn't 

 get back in. 



We were provided offices, we were provided secretarial support, 

 we were provided funds to look for other jobs. Quite frankly, the 

 company was very gracious to us during that time, but the lab was 

 literally shut down. 



Mr. Waxman. When you were told they were shutting down your 

 lab, what was your reaction? What did you say to them? 



Mr. DeNoble. Why? I mean, you know, why? All of a sudden ev- 

 erything was going down the tubes, and the response that I imme- 

 diately got was that it was a business decision. I mean, that's the 

 only thing they said to us during the first couple of weeks it was 

 shut down. 



Mr. Waxman. Did you ask for, at least for a short period of time, 

 to complete some of the work that was ongoing? 



Mr. DeNoble. To do anything. I mean, just to complete manu- 

 scripts, and we were not able to do that. We weren't able to con- 

 tinue. 



Mr. Waxman. Is it accurate that you asked for at least another 

 day to get some more data? 



