Brion Trial – Testimony Archive

In 1991, Stanley and Susan Rosenblatt filed a class-action lawsuit against the tobacco industry on behalf of non-smoking Flight Attendants who suffered from diseases caused by years of exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke in airline cabins. The case went to trial in 1997. The tobacco industry settled four months into the trial after more than 50 witnesses.   

The Broin case provided a rare opportunity to elicit the testimony of the tobacco industry CEOs and other industry leaders on smoking and health. This testimony represents an insightful and rare view into this historically significant trial. 

The testimony of tobacco executives was also used for the historic Engle lawsuit that the Rosenblatt’s filed on behalf of roughly half a million Florida smokers who developed a disease as a result of their addiction to nicotine. Their testimony, obtained by Stanley Rosenblatt, played a role in their appearance before Congress on April 14, 1994, for the Hearing on the Regulation of Tobacco Products House Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health and the Environment, otherwise known as the Waxman Hearings.

April 17, 1997, Videotaped Deposition of James J. Morgan, CEO of Philip Morris, Inc.

James J. Morgan, President of Philip Morris Companies, said that tobacco is no more addictive than Gummy Bears. Asked by class counsel Stanley M. Rosenblatt if he believes nicotine is addictive, Morgan responded: “Pharmacologically, my answer is no. If they are behaviorally addictive or habit-forming, they are much more like caffeine, or in my case, Gummy Bears. I love Gummy Bears…and I want Gummy Bears, and I like Gummy Bears, and I eat Gummy Bears, and I don’t like it when I don’t eat my Gummy Bears, but I’m certainly not addicted to them.”

April 18, 1997, Deposition of Nicholas George Brookes, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, and President of Brown & Williamson Tobacco Company

Nicholas George Brookes was the Brown & Williamson Chairman and Chief Executive Officer from 1995-2001. Brookes stated that there is no evidence that secondhand tobacco smoke causes disease. He maintained his position even though he had never read the Report of the Surgeon General on the subject or the EPA study that classified cigarette smoke as a class A carcinogen. Brookes stated that he was advised by his scientists that “the EPA study was an unusual study, shall we say, in the way statistics were calculated, but more importantly, I suppose, I’m aware of the Congressional Review Services publication on their analysis of the statistics on ETS, and basically, they say the conclusions reached by the EPA are unsupportable.”

Brooks was asked about British American Tobacco and Brown & Williamson Tobacco Company documents regarding nicotine and addiction. For example, a 1963 document authored by Addison Yeaman, Vice President and General Counsel for Brown & Williamson, states, “Moreover, nicotine is addictive. We are in the business of selling nicotine, an addictive drug effective in the release of stress mechanisms.” Brookes argued that any reference to nicotine addiction and terms that state that nicotine is addictive was used interchangeably with the term “habitual,” like caffeine.

July 21, 1997, Testimony of Bennett LeBow, Owner of Liggett Tobacco Company

Bennett LeBow was the Chairman, CEO, and majority shareholder of Brook Group, Owner of Liggett Tobacco Company.
During his 1993 testimony, Bennett LeBow denied that smoking was the cause of disease. However, in 1997 he told jurors that he now believes that smoking causes cancer, heart disease, and emphysema and that “for many people, cigarette smoking is very addictive.”

LeBow’s testimony was groundbreaking for a CEO of a tobacco company. It marked the first time a CEO broke ranks from the long-held industry position that the product did not cause harm and was not addictive.

September, 1997 Testimony of Harmon McAllister, VP of Research at the Council for Tobacco Research (CTR)

Harmon Carlyle McAllister, Jr., Ph.D., was Vice President of Research for the Council for Tobacco Research (CTR). He worked for Brown & Williamson as Media Director in the Marketing Department from 1983-84 and Media Services Director from 1984-85.

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1997 Videotaped Deposition of Freddy Homburger

Freddy Homburger was an early tobacco industry researcher funded by the Council for Tobacco Research (CTR), a tobacco industry organization. He performed animal studies with Hamsters who inhaled tobacco smoke.
“… when half of his hamsters came down with cancer, the CTR insisted on redesigning the smoking machine. The tobacco industry wanted them to change the whole works.

Freddy’s (smoking) machine did too much damage. Their ultimate judgment was that his hamsters did not get clear-cut cases of cancer. “It was not the invasive sort,” Homburger claimed that the CTR tried to prevent him from publishing his research. He claimed that representatives from CTR told him that if he were to publish his research findings, he “would never get a penny of funding from the Council of Tobacco Research.”

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1997 Videotaped Deposition of William R. Morgan

William Raymond Morgan, Ph.D., was an Analytical Research Chemist for Philip Morris (PM). He worked for PM for over 20 years and has served as an Anti-Tobacco Witness. Dr. Morgan told the court that a PM official ordered him in the 1980s to destroy findings indicating much higher-than-expected levels of a suspected carcinogen in the Philip Morris Virginia Slims cigarette brand. Dr. Morgan said he shredded the data under instructions from his section leader, who said he was acting under orders from the then head of PM’s Biological Research Division, Cathy Ellis. He was soon fired. When Mr. Morgan replicated the test with Virginia Slims, he found levels of nitrosamines ten times higher than other cigarettes, including Marlboro. He said the tar levels were “much higher than we had found in any other cigarette we had ever run.” Mr. Morgan testified that he took the results to his Section Leader, Ms. Kinser, who took them to Ms. Ellis in a separate office. Ms. Kinser “told me that I had to destroy all the data.”

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1997 Testimony of Bernard Scott Appleton, Ph.D.

DDr. Appleton served as Senior Research and Development in Toxicology at R.J. Reynolds, Nabisco, and performed toxicology studies on food. In the mid to late 1990s, he was the Director of Scientific & Regulatory Affairs in the Research & Development Department at Brown & Williamson Tobacco Company.

He argued that cigarettes were not addictive and “that the evidence is not sufficient to conclude that a ban of smoking on airplanes will, in any way, alter the risk of lung cancer or heart disease in flight attendants.”

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May 22, 1997 Testimony of Christopher R. E. Coggins

Chris Coggins (listed in some studies as C.R.E. Coggins) was an in-house inhalation toxicologist for both RJ Reynolds Tobacco and Lorillard Tobacco companies. At the time of his testimony, his title was Senior VP of Science and Technology at Lorillard Tobacco Company. He trained in Europe and worked in the late 1970s as the Inhalation Toxicology and Physiology Group Manager at the Battelle Research Center in Geneva, Switzerland. He became a disinformation expert in the 1980s and 1990s, conducting anti-science campaigns and operations.

Coggins followed a standard industry narrative stating that there was no causal relationship between smoking and disease.
“there are a large number of epidemiological studies that have given, that have shown a statistical association between lung cancer and smoking.”

“Because epidemiology cannot prove causation, in my mind, epidemiology can only generate hypotheses which can then be tested using the scientific method. But epidemiology is incapable of teasing out individual factors within a composite lifestyle.”