Debate About Sharing Research Findings With The Us Surgeon General

The Hippo reports prompted a flurry of correspondence between BAT headquarters and the B&W executive suite in the summer of 1963, particularly over the question of what information, if any, to disclose to the US Surgeon General's Advisory Committee on Smoking and Health, which was to issue its report the following year. Despite the fact that the Battelle research added new insight into the area of nicotine pharmacology, BAT and B&W ultimately decided to withhold the results of the Hippo projects from the Surgeon General's Advisory Committee.

A note dated June 19, 1963, from A. D. McCormick, a senior R&D executive at BAT, to Bill Cutchins, B&W's president, mentions that BAT has decided to send the results of the Battelle work to the Tobacco Research Council (TRC) in the United Kingdom and the Tobacco Industry Research Committee (TIRC) in the United States. (As described in chapter 2, TRC and TIRC were created by the tobacco industry as "independent" organizations that funded scientific research related to the health effects of tobacco.) McCormick then asks about the advisability of submitting the results to the Surgeon General's committee.

On 4th June [1963] Sir Charles Ellis sent to you copies of reports of research which B.A.T. had sponsored at the Battelle Research Institute in Geneva showing the beneficial effects of nicotine on the smoker. B.A.T. decided to make this research available to the T.R.C. here and it is being evaluated by T.R.C.'s outside medical experts. Preliminary reports indicate that these experts think the Battelle work to be a sound piece of research. It was always contemplated that if the reports stood up scientifically it might be desirable to get them submitted to the U.S. Surgeon General's Committee.

Todd of T.R.C., is to-day sending copies to T.I.R.C. with a request that they consider whether it would help the U.S. industry for these reports to be passed on to the Surgeon General's Committee.

I thought you should have this information in case you or any of your colleagues in Louisville [at B&W headquarters] might for any reason think this course of action inadvisable.

Could you please let me know as soon as you get back what your views are [emphasis added]. {1200.10}

A handwritten note on this document indicates that Cutchins asked Addison Yeaman, the general counsel at B&W, to prepare a reply.

In his reply, dated June 28, 1963, Yeaman expresses some regret that the Battelle reports were shared within the industry's jointly funded research groups. Specifically, he mentions the connections between the Battelle work and a project being conducted at B&W by R. B. Griffith, director of R&D, to develop a special filter called the Avalon filter.

I rather regret that Todd [of TRC] took this action without preliminary consultation here for the reason the Battelle nicotine report ties in so closely to Griffith's work that we would have preferred including both Griffith's work [on the Avalon filter] and the Battelle report in our consideration of submission to the Surgeon General. Moreover, Ed Jacob [a lawyer with Jacob and Medinger] in a talk with me yesterday reported that there was reason to believe that the Surgeon General's report would give particular emphasis to the part played by the aerosols in relation to possible deleterious effects of tobacco smoke. This, again, ties in so closely to Griffith's work, and by extension to Battelle's work, as to lead us to the preliminary opinion that the Battelle work and the Griffith development should—if at all—go into the Surgeon General as part of one package.

Happily Ed Jacob will be with us on Tuesday to give us the benefit of his particular and special knowledge of the Committee, its reports, etc., etc., in deciding what disclosures B&W should make of Griffith's work to the Surgeon General's Committee and, if such disclosure is to be made, whether it should be through TIRC or direct by B&W. The fact that the Battelle report is now in TIRC's hands undoubtedly will have some effect on that decision. {1802.01}

It is not clear from the documents precisely what "special knowledge" Jacob had of the Surgeon General's committee.

McCormick of BAT replied by cable a few days later to say that the independent scientists who had reviewed the Battelle reports had concluded that the results should not be submitted to the Surgeon General's committee.

T.R.C. consultant scientists advise it is too early to submit Battelle reports to Surgeon General's Committee but we think they will agree that continuation by Battelle of this work would be useful. Charles Ellis convinced of beneficial effects of nicotine but agrees further investigation desirable before publication. Please inform T.I.R.C. {1802.02}

B&W's Yeaman cabled back the same day to say that William T. Hoyt, the executive director of TIRC, had not distributed the reports to TIRC's Scientific Advisory Board (figure 3.2):

Prior to receipt your telex July 3 Hoyt of TIRC agreed to withhold disclosure of Battelle report to TIRC members or SAB until further notice from me. Finch [of B&W] agrees submission Battelle or Griffith developments to Surgeon General undesirable and we agree continuance of Battelle work useful but disturbed at its implication re cardiovascular disorders .

We believe combination Battelle work and Griffith's developments have implications which increase desirability reevaluation TIRC and reassessment fundamental policy re health. Hope to get off comprehensive note next week [emphasis added]. {1802.03}

McCormick amplified on his cable to Yeaman in a letter written the next day, but before he had received Yeaman's cable.

Charles' [Sir Charles Ellis's] view is that as the situation has now developed it would be wiser for B. & W. not to take the initiative in submitting anything to the Surgeon General's Committee but rather wait and hope that the Committee will ask the individual manufacturers for further details of their research work and then, should this happen, it would give B. & W. the opportunity of submitting the Battelle work and the work on the "Avalon" filter. As further work on both has to be done, the work would be immune from detailed criticism, but its disclosure would demonstrate that B. & W. and its associates had adopted a forward looking positive policy of research. {1803.01}

Yeaman compiled his thoughts on the nicotine research at BAT, Griffith's work on a new filter at B&W, and the Surgeon General's committee in a five-page memorandum dated July 17, 1963 {1802.05}. The memorandum presents an overview of B&W's strategic position on the health question and argues for the aggressive pursuit of selective filtration (the Griffith filter, code named Avalon) and the promotion of the beneficial effects of nicotine as revealed by the Battelle work. In Yeaman's view, the Battelle findings on nicotine could be used to justify smoking because of its positive benefits. If B&W could remove harmful constituents from smoke, it could then—with a clear conscience—promote cigarettes as nicotine delivery devices for people under stress from modern living. The memo opens,

The determination by Battelle of the "tranquilizing" function of nicotine, as received by the human system in the delivered smoke of cigarettes, together with nicotine's possible effect on obesity, delivers to the industry what well may be its first effective instrument of propaganda counter to that of the American Cancer Society, et al, damning cigarettes as having a causal relationship to cancer of the lung. The Battelle work is not in any degree responsive to that indictment nor to the Report expected to be returned by the Surgeon General's Committee on Smoking and Health. I would submit, however, that the Griffith filter offers the bridge over which the industry might

Figure 3.2.
July 3, 1963, cable from Addison Yeaman to Tony McCormick confirming agreement to
withhold scientific results on nicotine pharmacology from the Surgeon General's Advisory
Committee, which was then preparing the original 1964 Surgeon General's report {1200.12}.

pass from its present terrain of defense to a field for effective counter attack using the Battelle study as the basic weapon. I will assume for purposes of this note that the "Griffith filter" is one which permits filtration to specification; it filters taste and nicotine (and nicotine in even more effective form) free of constituent #1 to infinity, selectively. I grossly overstate and oversimplify Dr. Griffith's claims deliberately. {1802.05, p. 1}

Yeaman's statement clearly indicates that he regards nicotine as important primarily for its "tranquilizing" effects, not for its taste. In fact, he even mentions taste and nicotine separately, suggesting that they are independent in his mind. This understanding contrasts sharply with the tobacco industry's recent public claims that nicotine only adds taste and flavor.

Yeaman then offers his recommendations for possible responses to the Surgeon General's report. At the end of the paper, he returns to his discussion of nicotine. After quoting extensively from the final summary of

the Hippo II report {1211.03}, which describes the beneficial effects of nicotine, he adds,

Moreover, nicotine is addictive.

We are, then, in the business of selling nicotine, an addictive drug effective in the release of stress mechanisms [emphasis added]. {1802.05, p. 4}

As the documents reveal, B&W management knew about the work BAT had contracted for at Battelle in Geneva. Its decision to withhold important research on nicotine pharmacology from the Surgeon General's Advisory Committee is in stark contrast to the industry's public position of openness advanced in the "Frank Statement" ad and other public statements (see chapter 2).