Canadian tobacco companies' document destruction

[Robert Weissman <rob@essential.org>]

Tobacco giant destroyed studies: activists

DEBBIE PARKES The Gazette

Anti-tobacco activists were back on the battlefront yesterday, this time
accusing Imperial Tobacco Ltd. of deliberately destroying copies of
scientific studies - studies commissioned by the tobacco industry itself -
linking tobacco use to health problems.

"What we have here is very significant studies with respect to the health
effects of tobacco use - very significant biological experiments - which
should have been brought to the public's attention - (but) which were
shipped out of the country or destroyed," said Garfield Mahood, executive
director of the national Non-Smokers' Rights Association.

Originals still exist

Evidence of the documents' destruction surfaced in the form of two letters
by a lawyer for Imperial Tobacco, obtained by a lawyer for the state of
Massachusetts in another tobacco-company lawsuit. He passed on copies to
Canadian anti-smoking activists.

Imperial Tobacco was quick to play down its actions, saying it destroyed
only copies and the originals are still available in Britain from BAT
Industries, the parent company of Imasco, which owns Imperial Tobacco.

"The availability of these documents has not been affected one bit," said
Imperial spokesman Michel Descoteaux at a hastily arranged press
conference.

But an Ontario lawyer representing plaintiffs seeking permission to launch
a multibillion-dollar class-action suit against Imperial Tobacco in that
province said the destruction of the documents does indeed matter.

"A court can only force Imperial Tobacco or Imasco (Imperial's parent
company) as a party to produce documents over which it exercises control,"
said Andreas Seibert.

"If (Imperial Tobacco) had retained them, they would have been compelled
to produce them as evidence" in Ontario, presuming the case there goes
ahead, he explained in a telephone interview from Vancouver, where he was
attending a meeting of the International Bar Association.

Now, Seibert explained, he will have to bring a motion before the court
asking that BAT be required to provide the documents, but there are no
guarantees. 

Similar problems could arise in a suit to recover health costs about to be
launched by the British Columbia government.

The Non-Smokers' Rights Association and the Quebec Coalition for Tobacco
Control used yesterday's press conference to renew demands for a royal
commission into the Canadian tobacco industry.

"We're going to keep calling as evidence continues to roll out - and it
will continue to roll out," Mahood said in an interview.

Seibert also hinted that he may obtain more information linking Imperial
Tobacco to the destroying of documents in coming weeks. He said he's
waiting only for a U.S. judge to decide whether certain tobacco-company
documents currently under seal in a U.S. court case must be made public.

Also yesterday, a Montreal lawyer who represented Imperial at the time it
destroyed the documents brushed off suggestions that he may have acted
improperly.

Representatives of the two lobby groups present at yesterday's press
conference say Simon Potter, of the firm Ogilvy Renault, knew or ought to
know that the documents could be requested in eventual legal suits.

"Simon Potter has a legal duty not to be party to the destruction of
evidence he knows or ought to know" could be required in an eventual
lawsuit, said Non-Smokers' Rights lawyer Eric LeGresley. 

The main evidence made public yesterday by the lobby groups are two
letters, both from Potter, to BAT Industries. In the first letter, dated
June 1992, Potter notifies BAT that Imperial Tobacco plans to destroy 60
documents - among them, scientific studies.

In his second letter, dated August 1992, Potter confirms that documents
have been destroyed.

Reached later yesterday, Potter said: "I want it to be clear that in 1992,
my client was exposed to no litigation." 

But the lobby groups suggested it may not be a coincidence that Potter's
first letter was dated just days before the Ontario government passed
legislation facilitating class-action suits.

At Imperial Tobacco's press conference, Descoteaux was asked by reporters
whether Imperial would consider destroying such documents today.

Unlikely, said Descoteaux, given that legal suits are pending against the
company.

While the Canadian anti-tobacco groups don't know for sure whether all the
documents destroyed by Imperial Tobacco were copies of scientific studies,
they know that at least 22 of them were.

That's because copies of 22 of the documents listed were tracked down in
the U.S., where more than 40 states have launched court cases against U.S.
tobacco companies and some have already settled for billions of dollars.

One of the U.S. tobacco giants, Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., is a
sister company of Imperial.

Cancer in Hamsters

Stan Shatenstein, a consultant for the Non-Smokers' Rights Association,
read out a passage from one of the studies, titled "Experimental
tumorgenesis in the hamster larynx: the promoting activity of inhaled
smoke from cigarettes:"

"These data definitely suggest that inhaled tobacco smoke in hamsters
enhances the development of pre-cancerous and cancerous lesions in the
larynx," Shatenstein read.

Mahood said one of the greatest impediments to tougher action in Canada
against tobacco companies is public ignorance of the extent to which the
industry has manipulated information.

He said he hopes the new evidence on the destroying of documents will help
Canadians wake up to reality. "The Canadian public needs to understand
about the workings of this industry."