Pubdate: Friday, 30 October, 1998 Source: Seattle-Times (WA) Contact: http://www.seattletimes.com/ Author: Aviva L. Brandt, The Associated Press NOTES SAY TOBACCO INDUSTRY PLANNED TO DESTROY DATA SEATTLE - Secret documents from two tobacco companies outlining policies for destroying documents to hide research harmful to the tobacco industry were shown to jurors yesterday. Paul Luvera, a private lawyer hired to represent Washington state in its lawsuit against the tobacco industry, displayed a handwritten note purportedly from Thomas Osdene, the former director of research for Philip Morris, indicating research documents should be shipped to Cologne, Germany, and all other communication should be via phone or telex, which would be destroyed. "If IMPORTANT letters have to be sent please send to home - I will act on these & destroy," the note said. The note was not dated, addressed or signed. It was found in Osdene's files during a trial last year and has been attributed to him. Luvera also displayed parts of a memorandum on R.J. Reynolds Tobacco's research and development activities. Lawyers for the state say the document, dated Dec. 31, 1989, has never been made public before. It refers to a handwritten note by R.J. Reynolds scientist Alan Rodgman that said, "Destroyed reports and letters for legal reasons - he has only copy - leave it up to Chappel to destroy letters." Chappel was identified as the director of a Canadian research laboratory, but his first name was not included in the sections of the document made public. The document continues, "Rodgman recalled destroying reports relating to these tests because of legal concerns with biological tests of Camel cigarettes." Thomas Donaldson, a business-ethics professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business, told King County Superior Court jurors the actions, if true, were unethical. "When you destroy pieces of information . . . that messes things up in a significant way," Donaldson said. Philip Morris spokesman Michael York said the state received all documents it requested, including ones stored overseas. The state's lawsuit accuses seven tobacco companies of conspiring to violate antitrust and consumer-protection laws, suppressing health research and manipulating nicotine levels. The state is seeking as much as $2.2 billion to reimburse Medicaid and other insurance costs related to illnesses caused by smoking. The R.J. Reynolds document, which had large sections blanked out as privileged information, also described at least one instance in which the company suppressed research results about cancer-causing compounds in cigarette smoke. The document cites information from Henry Roemer, the company's general counsel at the time: "Rodgman told him that he (Rodgman) had discovered some compounds which the `enemy' had been speculating were in smoke, and the company was not publishing this information. Nonetheless, Roemer said that Rodgman assured him that by the time he sought publication, other individuals had discovered these compounds and were publishing their findings." Donaldson, however, said the company had an ethical obligation to publish research results to keep consumers and public-health officials informed. "This is shocking. This is unscrupulous behavior," Donaldson said of destroying research. - ---