Tobacco On Trial

Judge Kessler indicated Monday that the Joint Defense might have a few minor interogatories for Dr. Farone. Expect a ferocious 2-3 days.

Below, the DOJ’s bio of Dr. Farone, and a summary of his Direct Testimony.

From the DOJ Fact Memo:

Farone, William A. Ph.D. (US Expert & Fact Witness): . . .

Dr. Farone was Director of Applied Research at Philip Morris USA from 1977-1984, after coming to Philip Morris as a Principal Scientist in 1976. . . .

As Director of Applied Research at Philip Morris, Dr. Farone reported directly to the Vice President for Research and Development. Dr. Farone supervised five divisions with about 150 employees and oversaw the development and implementation of new products and new processes in cigarette design and manufacturing. Dr. Farone also coordinated joint ventures and contract research in new technology areas.

From the Testimony of William A. Farone:

Q: Before getting into a more detailed review of your background and your work at Philip Morris, can you please summarize your conclusions about which you are prepared to testify?

A: Yes.

My conclusions cover six main areas:

1. A cigarette is a complex device engineered to deliver nicotine via cigarette smoke, and that what a smoker gets from puffing on a cigarette is determined by how a cigarette is made, what is used to make it, and how the smoker smokes it.

It is my opinion that the cigarette company Defendants have designed and sold their brands of cigarettes to intentionally exploit their sophisticated understanding of all three – the manufacturing process, the components of a cigarette, and smoker behavior.

2. The tobacco industry recognized, even during the time that the companies were publicly denying that the smoke from cigarettes caused disease, that the evidence linking smoking and disease was sufficient to conclude scientifically that inhaling cigarette smoke was a cause of disease.

3. Defendants have long understood that cigarettes are addictive and that nicotine is the agent in cigarette smoke primarily responsible for addiction; and that in light of this knowledge, they have designed and manufactured their cigarettes to ensure that smokers can obtain enough nicotine to satisfy their addiction.

As a result of these design choices to facilitate nicotine delivery, the major brands of cigarettes sold by Defendants as “light” or “low tar” do not significantly change the chemistry or composition of cigarette smoke compared to their “full flavor” counterparts.

Therefore, from a chemist’s perspective, I would not expect such cigarettes to present any meaningful reduction in harm.

In fact, at least some designs features as used in “light” cigarettes make the smoke more toxic than the smoke from their “full flavor” versions.

4. Defendants’ product research and development activities reflect an agreement not to perform certain biological research on commercially marketed products in their domestic facilities.

I first learned of the existence of such an agreement during my time at Philip Morris.

As a result of this agreement, Defendants failed to perform meaningful tests on their as marketed products indicating biochemical differences in toxicity that have a bearing on the safety of their products.

5 Defendants’ research and development activities demonstrate substantial understanding of which chemicals in cigarette smoke were overwhelmingly likely to contribute to causing the harms of smoking.

Defendants in fact knew of and have developed technologies that reduced or eliminated harmful agents from smoke that were technically and commercially feasible, but did not meaningfully test them, did not incorporate them into marketed products in meaningful fashion, and did not assess how cigarettes with these features performed on standard toxicological tests as compared to commercially sold brands.

It is my conclusion that Defendants did not want to generate comparative scientific data that could show some cigarettes likely to be less harmful than others, since their official position was that no cigarettes had been proven unsafe.

Defendants’ scientific documents show that Defendants have endlessly studied and restudied scientific issues and problems, inevitably concluding that there was insufficient data to support fully implementing changes with potential safety advantages.

6 Defendants continue to obfuscate the science and technology of cigarettes and cigarette smoke, as it relates to their research on the chemicals in smoke and tobacco, the harm caused by the chemicals, and thus the products.

In my view, the “reduced risk” products that Defendants have recently begun to market, or say they intend to market, represent technologies available to them for decades.

Q: On what do you base these conclusions?

A: All of these opinions derive from my scientific education, training, and work experiences, including my eight years working in applied research in the Research & Development Department at Philip Morris; my contact with others who worked in the tobacco industry; review of the pertinent published scientific literature; and from my review of industry documents.

These industry documents include (1) documents that concern research on cigarette design and manufacture for which I received copies while at Philip Morris, (2) Philip Morris documents created both during and after my employment at Philip Morris to which I first gained access well after I left Philip Morris, and (3) other industry documents, including large numbers of documents showing similar technical results as the PM documents.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 5th, 2004 at 7:55 pm and is filed under Notes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.