Big Tobacco Case Study

For the majority of the twentieth century, Big Tobacco was invincible. The cigarette industry was a national, economic behemoth, and managed to escape almost every controversy it faced unscathed. With Congress on its side, the industry managed to filter out any liabilities. After the Labelling Act of 1965, companies were ‘forced’ to place warning labels on their packaging: Cigarette Smoking May Be Hazardous To Your Health. These vague, flimsy words proved more potent than any armor against the onslaught of lawsuits that were to come (Brandt 255). No one won against Big Tobacco, because they technically weren’t at ‘fault’ for any harm done by cigarettes. The consumers were ‘warned,’ after all. But if the cigarette industry was Goliath, then …show more content…
The document titled “The Cipollone Verdict”, written on July 5, 1988, was a draft of an internal, letter-document that was sent out to all affiliates of the Philip Morris company. It was made a month after the verdict that year in June, and two months after the newest Surgeon General’s Report was released, which deliberately stated that cigarettes were, in fact, addictive. The purpose of the letter is clear: to quell any unease within the company after the court ruling somewhat in Cipollone’s favor. This document, likely written by a member of senior management, offered a means of comfort: “the case therefore was completely and unequivocally favorable to Philip Morris and other cigarette manufacturers” (“The Cipollone Verdict” 2). Underscores included. Philip Morris clearly viewed the Cipollone verdict as a success--a chink in the armor, rather than a stone in the eye. They were confident in their infallibility, saying, “[p]rior to the Cipollone case, cigarette manufacturers had not lost a case nor had they paid money in order to settle one” (“The Cipollone Verdict” …show more content…
In The Cigarette Century, Brandt mentions the incriminating memo written by Helmut Wakeham in 1971, where he urged the company to “expand their research capacity (Brandt, 332). Wakeham explained, “Maybe…[it] is better to be informed about potential dangers than to be silenced by ignorance” (Brandt, 332). This memo was sent out nearly two decades prior to “The Cipollone Verdict”, which only further illustrates the company’s awareness and baseless denials. There is also an interesting contrast between the two messages, besides their time period. Wakeham’s memo was to the executives of Philip Morris, whereas “The Cipollone Verdict” was likely sent out from the executive branch, and to affiliates in a lower position. Denying the harms of cigarettes in a company document proves that Philip Morris not only attempted to keep the public in the dark, but the members of the company as well. Brandt even mentions an incident where two Philip Morris researchers -- Victor DeNoble and Paule Mele-- were made to drop all research on the addictive properties of nicotine in 1983 after finding resutlts that “reinforced” these addictive properties (Brandt,