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mind, to disassociate brain effects from peripheral effects. But they 

 never chose to follow that to the next logical scientific conclusion. 



Mr. Kreidler. Do you have any suspicions that level of research 

 might be something they couldn't keep control of at some point in 

 the future, that might have influenced whether they wanted to fol- 

 low up on these analogues? 



Mr. DeNoble. No, I don't believe that. I think that the research 

 facility was quite capable of following up on those analogues and 

 doing a lot more work. And, quite frankly, sir, it may have been 

 done. I am just not aware of it. 



Mr. Kreidler. I see. Smoking causes over 150,000 deaths each 

 year from heart disease. Your work at Philip Morris shows that 

 there might be a replacement for nicotine in cigarettes that would 

 duplicate the brain's effects of nicotine but would not have nico- 

 tine's effect on the heart. 



Yet, after you succeeded in developing an analogue, Philip Mor- 

 ris' response was to put your discovery on the shelf. Presuming 

 that no follow-up was done, does that trouble you? 



Mr. DeNoble. Well, sure. I mean, it troubles me a lot. To the 

 best of my knowledge it was put on the shelf. It may not have been 

 put on the shelf. 



Also, recognize that there is a large leap from our laboratory, 

 from Rochester data, from in-house data, and going into a product. 

 I mean, this analogue would have to go through many, many, many 

 other tests. And I think from a scientific point of view, it was dis- 

 turbing that they didn't choose to do those other tests. At least, we 

 have no knowledge that they did. 



Mr. Wyden. Will the gentleman yield? 



Mr. Kreidler. I yield. 



Mr. Wyden. I thank my colleague. Let me just be real brief 

 Wouldn't it have been in the public interest right at that point to 

 aggressively have pursued this new research? I mean, here we 

 have a situation, my colleague has basically said that the evidence 

 looks to us like it was put on the shelf, a situation where smoking 

 causes 150,000 deaths as a result of heart disease. 



My colleague has pointed out, you know, here is an opportunity 

 to really do something to help people. Wouldn't it have been in the 

 public interest to have aggressively done the research right at that 

 point, so that you and other scientists would be able to tell us 

 today what you know about it? 



Mr. DeNoble. Yes, sir, absolutely. 



Mr. Wyden. I thank my colleague for yielding. 



Mr. Waxman. Will you also yield? 



Mr. Wyden. Certainly. 



Mr. Waxman. I thought one of the ideas of scientific inquiry was 

 that you go as far as you can go and then other scientists can pick 

 up from where you left off. But if this information is never made 

 public, or never given to other scientists, there is no way that some 

 of these advances can be pursued. 



And I'm hoping that we can follow up further this trail because 

 this is a new revelation that perhaps cigarettes maybe could have 

 been made healthy, but at least could nave been made in a way 

 that would have avoided the deaths from the heart problems that 

 came from the nicotine. 



