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News (Media Awareness Project) - Nabisco to Extend Smoking Cautions
Title:Nabisco to Extend Smoking Cautions
Published On:1997-08-25
Fetched On:2008-09-08 12:44:33
Source:Orange County Registernews,page,23
Contact:(letters@link.freedom.com)

Headline:Nabisco to extend smoking cautions

HEALTH:People in the Third World will be warned of risks,the company head
says.

By KAREN TESTAThe Associated Press

WEST PALM BEACH,Fla.The head of RJR Nabisco said Friday that he intends
to warn people in Third World countries of the dangers of smoking, even
where warnings are not mandatory.

Steven F. Goldstone, a former smoker, also joined a growing number of
tobacco executives who have testified that cigarettes may be linked to cancer.
"I have always believed that smoking plays a part in causing lung cancer.
What that role is, I don't know, but I do believe it," he said.

Goldstone made the statement followed that given Thursday by Geoffrey
Bible, chairman of Philip Morris Cos., who was the first company executive
to acknowledge a possible link between smoking and death.

Bible, head of the nation's largest cigarette maker, admitted that smoking
"might have" killed 100,000 Americans.

Some tobacco foes have praised the tobacco executives for making the
apparently damning statements. Others noted that the comments put the
industry in a positive light as Congress contemplates a $368 billion
settlement that would largely wipe out most lawsuits against tobacco.

"That's a big part of the settlement, a change in the corporate culture,"
said John Coale, and antitobacco attorney in Washington who helped
negotiate the settlement. "I think a lot of people in Congress are looking
for that. These statements the last two days are helpful to the settlement
process."

Whatever the motivations, the comments are a departure from the past, Coale
said.

"This is a change," he said. "Up until now the companies have been dragged
kicking and screaming to do anything in this area (of warnings). Now it
seems the companies are actually taking a look at being better citizens of
the world."

Bennett LeBow, chief of Liggett Group, the smallest of the major cigarette
makers,is the only tobacco executive who has said that cigarettes kill and
are addictive.

In response to the final series of questions, Goldstone told Motley that
Reynolds has a policy of using warnings required by each country.
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