Few biochemists get to see themselves portrayed in an Oscar-nominated Hollywood movie starring Al Pacino. But then, how many blow the whistle on an industry as powerful as Big Tobacco? Jeffrey Wigand is one of the few. This former head of research at Brown & Williamson revealed on prime-time television that his former employers always knew that cigarettes are addictive and that smoking can kill. In so doing, he gave those seeking compensation what they sorely needed: the testimony of an insider. The Insider, due to open in Britain next week, has Wigand’s character receiving threats against his children, finding a bullet in his mailbox and fleeing a menacing man at a deserted driving range. Kurt Kleiner asked the real Wigand if Hollywood got it right?
How did you come to work for Brown & Williamson?
I replied to an ad in The New York Timesin 1988. After about six months of interviews with these folks it was my understanding that I was going to develop a safer cigarette. I actually started in December 1988 as vice-president of research and development.
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At that time did you have any misgivings about working for tobacco?
Not really. There was no misunderstanding in my mind that smoking tobacco was addictive and carried with it the risk of developing specific diseases. But I also believed that if you could reduce that risk you’d be helping people live longer lives and using science in the search for truth.
What happened when you actually started doing the job?
Well, I became aware of a definite duplicity. One mantra was: “We’re in the nicotine delivery business and tar’s the negative baggage.” Another was: “Hook `em young and we hook `em for life.” There was also pervasive lawyer involvement in manipulating the science as well as the scientists. I have to be very honest with you, I was also making lots of money. I was making $300 000 a year, plus the trappings of a successful executive. I had a wife and two very young children, two years old and two months old. My elder daughter required expensive medical treatment. She had spina bifida.
So you were uneasy but being well paid for it. What caused you to want out?
The final thing was the company’s continuing use of a vanilla-scented sweetener called coumarin, which was shown in the 1980s to be toxic to the liver cells of dogs. By the early 1990s, this additive had already been removed from cigarettes, because the industry was obliged by then to disclose all cigarette ingredients to the government. But in pipe tobacco, they didn’t have to disclose the ingredient, so they left it in. When I heard that toxicologists had discovered that coumarin was a lung-specific carcinogen in mice and rats, I took a stand.
What were you actually asking?
I wanted the additive to be immediately removed from the product. I was told to go back and find a substitute. To take it out would impact sales. But by then I’d had enough. My children were telling me I was killing people with the job I was doing. And I was just having difficulty looking in the mirror. So when I got fired in March 1993 all I wanted to do was get away from it and forget it.
So what happened then?
I finally got a severance settlement out of the company in June 1993, which allowed me to continue the healthcare benefits which were very important to me and my family. And then in September the company shut off these benefits and sued me for allegedly violating confidentiality by telling another employee details of my salary. To win back my benefits I would have to sign a much more onerous secrecy agreement. And, of course, I did. I signed it. I could not leave my children unprotected.
Given all that pressure, what led you to blow the whistle?
Oh, lots of things. In 1994, January, I was approached by Lowell Bergman, a producer with the CBS show 60 Minutes. He had obtained some 2000 pages of documents from Philip Morris which described attempts to develop a cigarette less likely to cause fires-the so-called “fire safe cigarette”. Then Congress decided to talk to these tobacco executives and as part of that they decided to contact me. I told them I couldn’t help them unless they subpoenaed me. Part of the new agreement I had signed was that every time someone contacted me about tobacco I had to report it to Brown & Williamson. So I did, and in April 1994, my children were the recipients of death threats by phone that were investigated by the FBI.
Those calls-what did they say?
“Don’t mess with tobacco-how are your children, where are your children?” The upshot was, your children are at risk if you go and talk about tobacco. I was scared. But then several tobacco company executives testified in front of Congress claiming that nicotine wasn’t addictive and that there’s no relationship between smoking and health. I knew that Thomas Sandefur, the chief executive officer of Brown & Williamson, knew otherwise, and I chose not to stay silent anymore.
So who did you start talking to?
In May 1994, I started to help the Food and Drug Administration to navigate the science of tobacco chemistry. This included things like cigarette design, ammonia chemistry, nicotine manipulation and genetic manipulation. The FDA was trying to get tobacco classified as a drug so that it could be regulated in the same way as medicines. And the agency wanted to understand what the tobacco industry knew about nicotine’s effects on smokers. Of course, I did that with the promise of anonymity. I travelled under assumed names and went through unmarked entrances-right out of a James Bond novel.
But you didn’t remain anonymous for long, did you?
No. In August 1995, I decided to go public with CBS on the understanding that should this go forward I’d need physical security for my family and particularly my children. CBS got threatened by Brown & Williamson with a multi-billion-dollar lawsuit if they aired the truth. CBS buckled. They didn’t air it but aired a watered-down version. Then somebody in CBS released the whole transcript of the interview to the New York media and all hell broke loose for me.
Brown & Williamson couldn’t have been very happy at this
No. They started a smear campaign in January 1996 after I elected to go to Mississippi and testify for a civil lawsuit. Mississippi had sued American tobacco companies to recover the costs of caring for ill smokers.
Brown & Williamson got a contempt order on the grounds that I’d be revealing trade secrets if I was allowed to testify. A judge put a restraining order on me, and Mississippi Attorney General Mike More told me if I went forward the chances of going to jail were pretty high. Boy, that scared the living bejesus out of me! I thought about it for about 45 minutes and basically said let’s go forward because if I didn’t do it now, I probably would never get the chance to do it.
So you didn’t go to prison?
I didn’t go to jail, through the help of the US Department of Justice as well as the Attorney-General of Mississippi. In January 1996, the Mississippi deposition [which had been sealed by court order] made its way into The Wall Street Journal. And then, of course, after all the risk was removed, you know what CBS did? They aired the interview. Also The Wall Street Journal then received a 500-page dossier from Brown & Williamson of half-truths and unsubstantiated allegations.
That dossier accused you of all sorts of things, including shoplifting, wife beating . . .
You name it. They were going to assault me in the court of public opinion. It backfired because The Wall Street Journal published on the front page that it was garbage and unsubstantiated. I’ve made my mistakes in life. I mean, nobody’s as pure as the driven snow. When you put somebody’s life under the microscope and distort things, it’s uncomfortable. I’m sure if someone decided to go after you they’d find something they could make hay out of.
In 1996, Brown & Williamson released a search warrant application in which an FBI agent said he suspected you of planting threatening letters and the bullet that you found in your mailbox
Yes they did. But why did Brown & Williamson wait a year and a half to release half of that FBI report-until the day the movie premiered? They were trying to suggest I had something to do with that bullet. That’s not what the complete report said. But they chose to pick and choose.
What do you think of the Brown & Williamson website where they take the movie apart?
Wait a minute…they’re whining because they’re being portrayed as being what, villainous? Did they cut off the healthcare benefits to my kid? Yeah, they did, that’s a fact. Did they extract a more onerous secrecy agreement so I wouldn’t talk about tobacco misbehaviour? Yeah. Did they intimidate CBS with a threat of a lawsuit should they air the truth? Yes. Was I followed? Yes.
On the website, the company devotes a lot of space to suggesting that your testimony is flawed because coumarin is not rat poison
I never said coumarin was rat poison. I objected to its use because it provided a health risk to those who chose to use pipe tobacco. But that is not the issue here. Is coumarin a rat poison? No. Is Coumadin [a brand name for a coumarin-derived anticoagulant] used in rat poison with ground glass? Yes. Are coumarin and Coumadin in the same chemical family and different by a few atoms? Yes. Is it easy to confuse the two? Yeah.
What do you think of the movie? Is it accurate?
In general. It takes several years and compresses it into two hours and thirty minutes, so the timings change a little. However, what is the truth of the movie? It deals with how the tobacco industry will use its power of intimidation to prevent the truth from coming out. Did the golf scene ever happen? It didn’t. But did the golf scene capture the menace and the empty feeling in one’s stomach of being followed? Yeah. I feel 100 per cent vindicated. I didn’t need the movie for that, but it’s the icing on the cake and I accept it. And I accept it as a continual reminder to the public of how this industry is, and how we need to make sure it doesn’t do what it has done.
What did you have to do with the making of the movie? Did you benefit financially from it?
My involvement with the movie was nominal. I spent a day on the set in Louisville, played golf and had a meal. I asked the director to protect my daughters’ identity and the nature of my eldest daughter’s illness and he did both.
Do you think tobacco companies have finally begun to admit the health consequences of smoking?
The industry has not fully admitted what it knows about nicotine addiction…You haven’t asked me the big question.
Which is?
Would I do it again? And was it worth it?
Well?
Yes, yes. Unequivocally. I’d do it again. It was the right thing to do.