Tobacco Documents Show Industry Intentionally Discounted Health Risks

ash.org

A previously sealed order in the Minnesota medicaid case has been unsealed. It adds to the growing evidence showing the tobacco industry deliberately misled the public. Yet these documents are still only the tip of the iceberg according to Minnesota attorneys familiar with the case. Senator Hatch needs to be urged to subpoena the relevant documents from Minnesota and make them available to the public. There should be FULL DISCLOSURE BEFORE SETTLEMENT.

Following are excerpts from the Pioneer Press report of the unsealing:

Evidence exists showing that the tobacco industry has intentionally denied or minimized the health risks smoking poses to the public, a Ramsey County district judge has said in a recently unsealed ruling in Minnesota's tobacco litigation.

The once-confidential ruling by Judge Kenneth Fitzpatrick, issued in May, was made public Friday after the judge unsealed it.

Only the judge's order was made public. The sensitive tobacco industry documents that he refers to in his order remain under seal. A court-appointed special master is determining whether any of those documents can be made part of the public file.

The judge stated in a separate order, however, that he believed it was important to release his May order, which quotes from the tobacco documents in question, because ``such findings are the basis for the court's decision. The court's decision is subject to public scrutiny.''

At issue is whether the sensitive documents were protected under the attorney-client privilege. In his May order, Fitzpatrick ruled that the government has made a successful preliminary showing that such documents were fraudulently protected under the attorney-client privilege.

In the May order, the judge noted that the government has made a case that the tobacco industry over the years has assured the public that it would not knowingly distribute a dangerous product and in fact that it was committed to providing safe products.

But Fitzpatrick also noted in his ruling that the tobacco industry has been aware that cigarette smoking is ``probably hazardous to the health of the smoker.''

The judge cited several documents in the 12-page order, including:

``In 1959, an RJR (R.J. Reynolds Co.) scientist, Alan Rodgman, concluded that there is a `distinct possibility' that substances in cigarette smoke could have a carcinogenic effect,'' the court wrote. ``In 1962, Rodgman wrote: `The amount of evidence accumulated to indict cigarette smoke as a health hazard is overwhelming while the evidence challenging the indictment is scant.' ''

A 1976 internal memo by S.J. Green, a tobacco scientist at BAT Industries, stated, according to the judge's order: ``The public position of tobacco companies with respect to causal explanations of the association of cigarette smoking and diseases is dominated by legal considerations . . . by repudiation of a causal role for cigarette smoking in general they (the companies) hope to avoid liability in particular cases.''

In 1970, Helmut Wakeham, head of research and development of Philip Morris Cos., wrote a memorandum to the president of the firm, Joseph Cullman, that discussed the Council for Tobacco Research, or CTR, the judge stated.

In this memorandum, Wakeham wrote: ``It has been stated that CTR is a program to find out about the `truth about smoking health.' What is truth to one is false to another. CTR and the industry have publicly and frequently denied what others find as `truth.' Let's face it. We are interested in evidence which we believe denies the allegations that cigarette smoking causes disease.'

Fitzpatrick wrote: ``This court finds that . . . the foregoing documents reasonably lead to the conclusion that the Tobacco Industry, and the individual defendants, intentionally denied or minimized known health risks at the same time they internally discussed those health risks.''