Milstein Grilled on Lorillard Addiction/ETS Statements
January 7, 2005 3:39 pm by Gene BorioRonald Milstein, Vice-President and General Counsel for Lorillard Tobacco Company, and a familiar face among the trial observers here in Courtroom #19 (until he found out he was to be a witness, he reported on the trial to Lorillard CEO Martin Orlowsky), took the witness stand today, and was asked by DOJ attorney Stephen Brody about his public statements on secondhand smoke and addiction.
Since these statements appeared in Lorillard press releases–some of which remain on Lorillard’s website as of last night–Mr. Brody is attempting to establish “the likelihood of future wrongdoing.”
Mr. Brody seems to be trying to tie several aspects of the DOJ case together here:
Two “pillars” of the DOJ’s case are being directly addressed:
–The campaign to deny that exposure to tobacco smoke causes adverse health effects (Routh/Broin case).
–The denial that nicotine is addictive (Scott case).
The Teen Smoking pillar was obliquely addressed when Mr. Brody asserted that, based on Mr. Milstein’s public assertion in the Gadaleta case (”The plaintiff failed to prove that tobacco smoke was a factor in causing his injury, because he quit smoking many years before he developed lung cancer.”), a young smoker might think he could start smoking now and quit later–at which time his/her lung cancer risk would return to zero.
January 7th, 2005 at 9:10 pm
The Teen Smoking pillar was obliquely addressed when Mr. Brody asserted that, based on Mr. Milstein’s public assertion in the Gadaleta case (”The plaintiff failed to prove that tobacco smoke was a factor in causing his injury, because he quit smoking many years before he developed lung cancer.”), a young smoker might think he could start smoking now and quit later–at which time his/her lung cancer risk would return to zero.
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That’s an interesting legal angle. Very clever of the DOJ.
But the premise is false. The lung cancer rate of non-smokers is NOT zero. The relative risk to smokers is about 11 to 1, meaning smokers are 11 times as likely to develop lung cancers as non-smokers. Put differently, about 1 in 20 lung cancers occur in persons who have never smoked. A person who has smoked for only a very short period of time, or a person who has quit smoking *for many years* will have a lung cancer rate not too dissimilar from that of a never-smoker.
I don’t think, in general, it makes any kind of sense to hold a company to a legal standard consisting of how others *might* unreasonably misinterpret their statements out of context.
Does this DOJ lawyer really think that some pre-18 year old will be casually reading Lorrilard’s website (which also states EXPLICITLY “All cigarettes are dangerous and smoking can cause serious diseases, including lung cancer”), read that summary legal statement about a lawsuit, and then decide that they can safely smoke so long as they quit smoking before they get cancer?
Let’s see them bring said 16 year old smoker into the witness stand, and have him/her explain how surfing the web and reading about Lorrilard’s legal problems (eg that a smoker sued them for getting cancer) encouraged them to take up smoking, since it made them think they weren’t going to get cancer!
Frankly, it doesn’t say much about the gov’ts case if they need to rely on that kind of a stretch to prove ongoing “youth marketing”?
January 10th, 2005 at 2:46 pm
“a person who has quit smoking *for many years* will have a lung cancer rate not too dissimilar from that of a never-smoker.”
I wish that were the case.
The fact is, almost 50% of all lung cancer is found in ex-smokers.
Former smokers develop lung cancer at rates 11 to 33 times higher than nonsmokers.
After more than 20 years of quitting, ex-smokers are still at increased risk of lung cancer.
This product continues to maim and kill the customer two decades after the customer stops using it.
Source: ACSH pamphlet
The Irreversible Health
Effects of Cigarette Smoking
Paul Brodish, MSPH, published by the
American Council on Science and Health,
June 1998
http://www.acsh.org/publications/pubID.377/pub_detail.asp
Interestingly, you will not see these facts mentioned on the Philip Morris website.
ACSH also finds that teen smokers believe that later quitting will make current smoking OK:
“Teen smokers who believe that all the health hazards of cigarettes will disappear in a puff of smoke when they quit who assume that smoking from, say, age 16 to age 28 will have no long-term effects often fall back on an ‘I can always quit tomorrow’ (or next month or next year) philosophy. They trust mistakenly that any adverse health consequences they may incur during their smoking years will disappear when, eventually, they stop lighting up.”
That holds true in my own experience too. I’ve heard many young smokers say “Oh, I’ll quit before I’m 30″.
The saddest part is how this belief combines with addictive product. The pamphlet puts it:
“Only 20% of smokers who try to quit are successful on a long-term basis. For four out of five of those who take up smoking, the very decision to being is itself irreversible.”
This means it’s unrealistic to talk about a person who “smoked for only a very short period of time”. Very few customers will use this product for only a very short time.
Almost all customer get addicted to this product, and because they’re addicted, will use the product for a long time.
That’s how Philip Morris makes its money.
If the product weren’t addictive, the tobacco industry as we know it wouldn’t exist.