The Evolving Role Of CTR

Although CTR was originally formed as a public relations instrument, its role and importance to the tobacco industry evolved over the years. This evolution is described in an April 4, 1978, memo from Ernest Pepples to J. E. Edens, chairman and CEO of B&W.

Originally, CTR was organized as a public relations effort. The industry told the world CTR would look at the diseases which were being associated with smoking. There was even a suggestion by our political spokesmen that if a harmful element turned up[,] the industry would try to root it out. The research of CTR also discharged a legal responsibility. The manufacturer has a duty to know its product. The Scientific Advisory Board composed of highly reputable independent scientists constitutes a place where the present state of the art is constantly being updated. Theoretically SAB is showing us the way in a highly complex field. There is another political need for research. Recently it has been suggested that CTR or industry research should enable us to give quick responses to new developments in the propaganda of the avid anti-smoking groups. For example, CTR or someone should be able to rebut the suggestion that smokers suffer from a peculiar disease, as widely alleged in the press some few months ago. ... Finally the industry research effort has included special projects designed to find scientists and medical doctors who might serve as industry witnesses in lawsuits or in a legislative forum. All of these matters and more should be considered in asking what kind of research the industry should do [emphasis added]. {2010.02, p. 2}

Pepples's description of CTR is remarkable in several respects. First, he confirms that CTR was formed for public relations purposes. In addition, he notes that CTR has served as a political and legal shield for the industry over the years. Finally, he states outright that CTR's "special projects" were designed to develop research data and scientists that could be used to defend the industry in court and legislative efforts (see chapter 8). All these statements contrast sharply with CTR's publicly stated goal of determining the truth regarding the health effects of smoking.

Similar views on the importance of CTR were expressed by Bill Shinn of Shook, Hardy, and Bacon, a law firm that represents tobacco companies. Shinn's comments are summarized by Pepples in a memo to C. I. McCarty, B&W's chairman and chief operating officer {2010.03}. The

memo is marked "privileged" and is dated September 29, 1978. In it Pepples notes that, according to Shinn, CTR is valuable to the industry because it provides legal protection as well as political and public relations advantages.

Bill [Shinn] mentions two aspects of particular value in CTR: (1) the direct legal protection derived by Brown & Williamson and (2) the political and public relations advantage accruing to the industry. {2010.03}

With regard to legal protection, Pepples mentions the Monroe case against Kool cigarettes, evidently an unreported case or one that was dismissed or settled. He notes that B&W was asked in this case to describe what it had done to keep abreast of the science concerning its product.

Our reply tells about the ten imminent [sic ] scientists who serve on the SAB in an advisory capacity at CTR and it tells about the grants which CTR has made over 10 years. Stated another way, our answer says CTR is our window on the world of smoking and health research. This avoids the research dilemma presented to a responsible manufacturer of cigarettes, which on the one hand needs to know the state of the art and on the other hand cannot afford the risk of having in-house work turn sour [emphasis added]. {2010.03}

Pepples then discusses a problem faced by Liggett. Liggett had filed a report written by an outside lab in support of a patent application, and the report had stated that tumorigenicity was reduced when a particular catalyst was added to the tobacco blend. A newspaper in Charlotte, North Carolina, in a front-page story based on the patent application, declared that Liggett had admitted to laboratory proof of a causal relationship between cigarettes and cancer. Pepples states,

The point here is the value of having CTR doing work in a nondirected and independent fashion as contrasted with work either in-house or under B&W contract which, if it goes wrong, can become the smoking pistol in a lawsuit [emphasis added]. {2010.03}

In other words, CTR gave the tobacco industry not only an opportunity to develop the scientific information it needed to protect its interests but also some insulation against liability for results that could prove to be legally embarrassing. When the work supported the industry's position, it could be trumpeted; when it supported the case against smoking—as in Gary Friedman's work on smoking and heart disease (13), discussed in chapter 8—the industry could walk away from it.

The documents show a marked contrast between what the tobacco industry was saying publicly and what it was saying privately about the

purpose of TIRC, and later CTR. Publicly, the industry maintained, and continues to maintain, that the primary purpose of TIRC and CTR has been to fund independent research to determine whether smoking is truly hazardous to health. Privately, however, lawyers for B&W stated that CTR's primary purpose was to allow the tobacco industry to argue that there was a "controversy" about tobacco's effects and that more research was needed to resolve the "controversy." Furthermore, CTR provided legal and political protection for the industry. Beginning in 1966, CTR began to fund "special projects," which were awarded not by CTR's Scientific Advisory Board but by tobacco industry lawyers. This special project funding was not disclosed to the public. As we show in chapter 8, CTR's special projects were used to develop scientific evidence that the tobacco industry could use selectively to defend itself in court, for public relations purposes, and to influence public policy. Developing data for defense is not in itself problematic, of course. But questions do arise when the research is done in secret, so that only favorable results need be shown; when the fact of industry support for what does get published is concealed from the public; and when the attorney-client privilege is invoked in spite of claims that all relevant information will be made public.