Defendants Falsely Denied the Adverse Health Effects of Smoking

Defendants Falsely Denied the Adverse Health Effects of Smoking

¶Smoking is a cause of significant disease and death. The evidence presented in this case demonstrates the extent of suffering by smokers and former smokers. Cigarette smoking and exposure to secondhand smoke kills 440,000 Americans every year, or more than 1,200 every single day. The annual number of deaths due to cigarette smoking is substantially greater than the combined annual number of deaths due to illegal drug use, alcohol consumption, automobile accidents, fires, homicides, suicides, and AIDS. Approximately one out of every five deaths that occur in the United States is caused by cigarette smoking. See Findings of Fact, V(A)(1).

¶Defendants' joint efforts to deny and distort the health effects of cigarette smoking consisted of making numerous widely disseminated public statements that denied or questioned smoking's harms; attacking legitimate scientific investigation; continually calling for more research; and, years after questions of causation were resolved in the public health community, repeatedly promising to determine through "objective" research by "independent" scientists, whether smoking was a cause of disease.11

¶Defendants' efforts to deny and distort the scientific evidence of smoking's harms are demonstrated by not only decades of press releases, reports, booklets, newsletters, television and radio appearances, and scientific symposia and publications, but also by evidence of their concerted, efforts to attack and undermine the studies in mainstream scientific publications such as the Reports of the Surgeon General. The intense public relations activity -- consisting of numerous press releases, advertisements, and other false statements -- before and particularly after publication of the 1964 Surgeon General's Report on Smoking and Health (the first to announce the consensus of the scientific and public health community that smoking caused disease and death), is but one example. See Findings of Fact Section V(A)(3)(c) and V(A)(5)(c). This continued despite widespread internal acknowledgment among Defendants' executives and scientists that smoking causes disease. See, e.g., Farone WD, 66:1-18 ("There was widespread acceptance that smoking caused disease. I never talked with a scientist at Philip Morris who said that smoking doesn't cause disease.").

¶Even after the 1964 Report, a February 26, 1972 Tobacco Institute press release asserted that the 1972 Surgeon General's Report, which announced the consensus of the scientific and public

¶The alleged Racketeering Acts relating to this component of the scheme to defraud are Racketeering Act Nos. 1-3, 5, 7, 10-14, 18, 23, 24, 26, 27, 29, 30, 33, 34, 38, 42, 43, 46, 50, 51, 54, 57, 62, 64, 65, 82, 85, 92, 99, 105-107, 115, 120, & 123.

¶health community that smoking causes chronic obstructive bronchopulmonary disease (COPD) and other cardiovascular diseases, as well as cancer, "insults the scientific community" and that the report was "another example of 'press conference science' -- an absolute masterpiece of bureaucratic obfuscation." The press release also asserted that "the number one health problem is not cigarette smoking, but is the extent to which public health officials may knowingly mislead the American public." TIMN 0210602-03 at 0602 (US 21322).

¶Of paramount significance is that Defendants' internal documents openly acknowledge the purpose of their public relations strategy. For example, William Kloepfer, Vice President of Public Relations for the Tobacco Institute, wrote to Earle Clements, President of the Tobacco Institute admitting his concern about the purpose: "Our basic position in the cigarette controversy is subject to the charge, and may be subject to a finding, that we are making false or misleading statements to promote the sale of cigarettes." TIMN0072354-56 at 2354 (US 63576). The Tobacco Institute's 1968 internal "Tobacco and Health Research Procedural Memo" advised: "The most important type of story is that which casts doubt on the cause and effect theory of disease and smoking. . . . [T]he headline should strongly call out the point – Controversy! Contradiction! Other factors! Unknowns!" TIMN0071488-91 at 1489 (US 21302). Similarly, an undated internal B&W document titled "Smoking and Health Proposal" explained: "Doubt is our product since it is the best means of competing with the 'body of fact' that exists in the mind of the general public. It is also the means of establishing a controversy." 690010951-0959 at 0959 (US 21040).

¶As another example, in a 1975 marketing document, B&W acknowledged the necessity of continuing the "open controversy" strategy:

Smokers perceive cigarette smoking as dangerous for one's health. However, they continue to smoke. Thus, they are faced with the fact that they are behaving illogically. They respond by providing either a rationalization for smoking or by repressing their perceptions of the dangers involved. . . . The advertising must also cope with consumer attitudes about smoking, providing either a rationale or a means of repressing the health concern.

¶680113760-3763 at 3761-3762 (US 20987).

¶Defendants understood that most individuals, when starting to smoke, do not adequately appreciate the full risk associated with smoking to make an informed decision about whether or not to engage in smoking behavior. In fact, the evidence shows that most people's knowledge of the nature and consequences of diseases caused by smoking tends to be superficial. See Findings of Fact Section V(B); Slovic WD, 18:14-20:5; Weinstein WD, 24:7-29:22.

¶Using the sophisticated and well-organized machinery created to serve their agenda, Defendants fraudulently denied the adverse health effects of smoking for at least 40 years in order to sustain the appearance of an open controversy about the link between smoking and disease, and thereby maintain and enhance the cigarette market and their collective revenues.