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.