Health advocate Dr. Jeffrey Wigand, who rose to national prominence as the highest-ranking tobacco industry executive to address smoking and health issues to the public on news program "60 Minutes," related his insider experience, lambasted a "very sleazy, powerful, smart" business and described abuses such as public misinformation and youth-oriented marketing last night in the Collis Commonground.
In a lecture titled "Inside the Industry: The Smokescreen," Wigand recounted his relationship with Brown and Williamson Tobacco Company, one of the largest cigarette makers in the world. Hired as the Vice President of Research and Development by in 1989, Wigand said he was charged with supervising the development of making "safer cigarettes."
He said his initial enthusiasm gave way to disillusionment when plans were dropped within the same year. Brown and Williamson, he said, felt that "safer cigarettes" would "undermine" over 50 years of marketing that sought to obscure the link between smoking and disease. According to Wigand, All records relating to "safer cigarettes" were shipped overseas to a sister company.
Wigand said he was further taken aback by the company's treatment of scientific discoveries. He described how company lawyers reduced a 20-page memo from a 1989 conference on smoking- that concluded that nicotine was addictive- to "two pages of vanilla." The release of the memo's content would have been a "nightmare" for Brown and Williamson, Wigand said.
Though repulsed by the industry's dishonest practices, Wigand hesitated about coming forward with his knowledge. The company's generous paycheck would help cover his mortgage and health care benefits were "critical" to paying for his daughter's medical treatment, he explained.
But when Wigand finally took a stand, he saw his life sent into a tailspin. His objection to the company's use of a purportedly carcinogenic additive prompted his termination in 1993.
Wigand said that he was also contacted by the Food and Drug Administration. Knowing that the tobacco industry would do anything to "derail" Wigand's involvement with federal agencies, the FDA shrouded their relationship in secrecy. During his six months of collaboration with the FDA, Wigand lived a very "James Bond" existence, travelling under "assumed names and passing through unmarked entries."
According to a press release from the C. Everett Koop Institute, Commissioner for the FDA Dr. Kessler publicly stated that Dr. Wigand's cooperation was integral to the FDA's investigation into the effects of nicotine.
After his dismissal, the producers of the "60 Minutes" approached Wigand for an interview. During the segment, Wigand discussed nicotine manipulation and marketing targeted at children and adolescents.
The tobacco industry tries to perpetuate the image that cigarettes are just natural ingredients wrapped in paper, Wigand told the audience but he found that tobacco products are "meticulously engineered." Cigarette additives like cocoa, licorice, and glycerol-commonly found in cosmetics-are toxic when burned. Meanwhile, the ammonia in the cigarette frees up nicotine and changes its PH balance.
"Coupled with sophisticated marketing," cigarettes can hold a strong allure for children and teenagers. The tobacco industry, according to Wigand, "lives to target children" and tries to "hook [them] before 18." Afterwards, the chances for addiction are more "remote," he said.
Wigand also shattered the myth of the "light cigarette," a product targeted at women. Contrary to its image as a less lethal, low tar product, Wigand said that light cigarettes can oftentimes be more dangerous than other types. New light cigarette smokers who have switched from heavier tar cigarettes compensate for the lower tar content by breathing the smoke deeper into their lungs, Wigand said.
Though the United States has the "lightest of light cigarettes," Wigand lamented that there has been no "appreciable decrease" in the rate of 470,000 tobacco-related deaths per year, a figure which he equated to "two jumbo jets going down each day."
The lecture was followed by a brief question-and answer session and the premiere of the trailer for the animated anti-smoking short "Tobacco Never Dies?" accompanied by a panel discussion with its creators.
Wigand is also the founder of Smoke-Free Kids, Inc., a nonprofit organization aimed at curbing smoking among teenagers. Over the course of 25 years, Wigand has also held senior manager positions at health care companies such as Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, and Merck. He has also taught Japanese and science in a Kentucky high school.
