Source: Reuter

RJ Reynolds CEO says no dangers in secondhand smoke
By Michael Connor
MIAMI (Reuter) Science has yet to produce any convincing
evidence that secondhand smoke causes lung cancer and other
diseases, the head of America's secondlargest cigarette maker
said Wednesday in a landmark lawsuit against the tobacco
industry.
In a videotape shown to jurors, Andrew Schindler, chief
executive of RJ Reynolds Tobacco Co., also testified that
smoking itself was likely a factor in causing lung cancer but
that health researchers had yet to prove the connections with
the many diseases blamed on smoking.
``They are a risk factor, and they may cause the diseases
they are associated with, but it's not clear scientifically that
they do,'' said Schindler in response to questioning by a lawyer
representing 60,000 nonsmoking flight attendants.
Schindler said secondhand smoke has never been
satisfactorily shown by researchers to cause medical disorders
in nonsmokers. ``I don't believe it does. I don't believe that
the epidemiology ... points in that direction,'' Schindler said.
``There's absolutely no evidence for it,'' he said.
The effects of secondhand smoke are at the center of a $5
billion lawsuit brought by flight attendants against the tobacco
industry. The flight attendants contend passenger smoking aboard
U.S. airlines caused their lung cancer, emphysema and other
diseases.
Epidemiologists, who study diseases patterns and causes
among large groups, have testified on behalf of the flight
attendants that people such as restaurant workers breathe in
dangerous carcinogens from sustained exposure to secondhand
smoke.
U.S. environmental regulators have also classified
secondhand smoke as a strong carcinogen, or cancercausing
substance.
The executive, himself a smoker all his adult life, also
said he did not believe smoking was truly addictive. His remarks
echoed the testimony on the purported addiction of cigarettes,
including the head of Philip Morris Cos. Inc.'s U.S. tobacco
business, who compared the physical pull of using cigarettes to
that of eating jelly candies.
``When you say to me, 'Are cigarettes addictive?' I say to
you cigarettes are like caffeine, not like heroin or cocaine,''
Schindler said.
``Bottom line: cigarettes are not addictive?'' asked Stanley
Rosenblatt, the attorney for the flight attendants.
``I don't think the word applies,'' Schindler said.
The executive, who ran Reynolds Tobacco for two years,
dismissed as ``bizarre'' the 1972 memorandum of a Reynolds
executive who said addicting people to the nicotine in
cigarettes was key to keeping alive and expanding the company's
cigarettes brands such as Winston.
``I never heard anyone in the business say things like this,
and I've been in the business a long time. His opinion is not my
opinion,'' Schindler said towards the end of the twohour
videotape.
The plaintiffs, whose case is winding up after 10 weeks of
testimony and jury selection, claim in their lawsuit that seven
tobacco companies and two trade groups sold cigarettes while
knowing their health risks and conspiring to keep that
information from Americans.
The tobacco companies, who will likely begin their defense
next week, deny the conspiracy charges and say the incidence of
lung cancer, emphysema and other tobaccorelated disorders among
the flight attendants was no higher than that of the general
population.