m 



THE WALL STREET JOURNAL 



\oi t c \\i NO :<)**■ 



rHLRSDAV. Fl BRL'ARY II. mi 



M • II «5f > 



; C F N T S 



Smoke and Mirrors 



How Cigarette Makers 



Keep Health Question 



'Open' Year After Year 



Council for Tobacco Research Is Billed 

 as Independent But Guided by Lawyers 



An Industry Insurance Policy 



By ALix M Freedman 

 And L^LRiE P. Cohen 



S!tiff Rtpor.tn. of THE W ALL STREET JOLRNAL 



This IS ihe slop, of ihe longest -running misinformation cam- 

 paign in U.S. business hisior\, and how it may ultimately back- 

 lire on lis corporate sponsors. 



The tale opens in 1954 Cigarette smoking, like tail fins and 

 the new music called rock-and-roll, was fun and glamorous. 

 Bui a warning had just been sounded ihat smoking might not 

 be good for you. .^ scientist al Memorial Sloan-Ketiering 

 Cancer Center had painted tobacco lars on the backs of mice 

 and produced tumors. The tobacco industry met this sudden 

 threat head-on 



In full-page newspaper ads headlined "A Frank Statement 

 to Cigaretie Smokers." tobacco companies announced that a 

 new research group, funded by the industry but independent, 

 would examine "all phases of tobacco use and health." Its 

 solemn pledge. "We accept an interest in people's health as a 

 basic responsibilii>. paramount to e^ery other consideration in 

 our business." 



The tobacco industry's main vehicle for damage control was 

 up and running. 



Sowing Doubt 



For almost four decades, the Council for Tobacco Research in New 

 York has been the hub of a massive effon to cast doubt on the links 

 between smoking and disease. Sponsored by U S tobacco companies 

 and long run behind the scenes by tobacco-industry lawyers, the os- 

 lensibh independent counal has spent millions of dollars advancing 

 sympathetic saence. .At the same time, it has sometimes disregarded, 

 or even cut off, studies of its own that implicated smoking as a health 

 hazard. 



"When CTR researchers found out that cigarettes were bad and 

 It was belter not to smoke. »e didn't publicize lhat" in press releases, 

 savs Dorothea Cohen, who for 24 years until her retirement in 1989 

 wrote summaries of grantee research for the Council's annual report 

 "The CTR is just a lobbying ihing We were lobbying for cigarettes. ' 



Many companies under atiack for their products have underwrit 

 ten research to buttress safety claims. What sets the tobacco industry 

 apart is the scope, aggressiveness and persistence of its under 



taking. For decades nval tobaa'o companies have acini in conten to 

 comhal the growing bodv of evidence linking their products to cancer, 

 heart disease and emphysema. 



Cheap Insurance 



The US Centers for Disease Control today links 454,000 

 deaths a year lo smoking. The surgeon general has declared 

 smoking "the single largest preventable cause of death and dis- 

 ability," cuing "overwhelming" evidence from no less than 

 50,000 studies. Vet the wisp of uncertainty supplied bv the 

 Council has always been enough to protect the S50 billion in- 

 dustry in Congress and especially in court, and tobacco com- 

 panies have never paid a dime in product liabihtv claims. 



Addison Yeaman, a former Brown & Williamson Co. law- 

 yer and et-chairman of the Council, says the passage of time 

 hasn't altered his faith in this view e.xpres.sed at a Council meet- 

 ing in 1975: The "CTR is (the) best and cheapest insurance the 

 tobacco industry can buy, and without It, the industry would 

 have to invent CTR or would be dead." 



Michael Pertschuk, a former chairman of the Federal Trade 

 Commission, finds the industry's defense extraordinarv : "There 

 never has been a health hazard so perfectly proven as smok- 

 ing, and it is a measure of the Council's success that it is able 

 to create the illusion of controversy in what is so elegantly a 

 closed scientific case." 



A Legal Peril 



But now Ihe device the industry has so long used lo deflect 

 attack has become its biggest vulnerability. That ;s because the 

 Supreme Court last year said smokers can sue, accusing the in- 

 dustry of deliberately hiding or disorting smokuig's dangers. 

 And ihe U.S. aiiornev's office in Brooklyn, N.V . is conduct- 

 ing a criminal investigaiion into whether the industry used the 

 Council to defraud the public. 



Whether anyihing will come of the criminal inquiry — and 

 whether plaintiffs can convince juries that the industry did in 

 fact misrepresent health hazards — are very much open ques- 

 tions; just last monih. one jury rejected allegations of a con- 

 spiracy. But if plaintiffs should begin to succeed, perhaps bv 

 gaimng access to now -secret Council documents, they could turn 

 on iis head what up to now has been an almost io;alK winning 

 industry strategy. 



The Council for Tobacco Research declined to respond to 

 questions about its activities, as did all of the Big Six tobacco 

 companies — Phillip Morris Cos., RJR Nabisco Holdings 

 Corp., American Brands Inc., BAT. Industries PLC (parent 

 of Brown & Williamson), Loews Corp. (parent of Lorillard) 

 and Brooke Group Ltd. (parent of Liggett Group). 



At the outset, many in the industry thought the late- 1953 

 crisis posed by the Sloan-Kaiering mouse research was entire- 

 ly manageable. With the Council, "the industry was told that 

 in the best of worlds, we'd do a great service to mankind," 

 says James Bowling, a former Philip Morris director. "Our 

 product either would be exonerated or, if involved (in causing 

 cancer), they'd identify the ingredients and we'd lake them out. 

 We thought this was marvelous." 



So apparently did some scientists. The Counol snagged a 

 noted figure, Clarence Cook Little, as its scien'uHc director. 

 Thanks to his renown as a former Umversiiy of Michigan presi- 



