Tobacco Official Denies Hiding Nicotine Project

A top cigarette company executive Thursday rejected allegations by Food and Drug Administration Commissioner David A. Kessler that the firm concealed efforts to develop a high-nicotine form of tobacco.

Appearing before the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on health and the environment, Thomas E. Sandefur Jr., chairman and chief executive officer of Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., accused the FDA chief of “grandstanding” in testimony before the panel Tuesday and of “exaggerating the situation to fit his personal and political agenda.”

The FDA “set up” B&W; to imply that the company lied or hid information about research involving the development of a high-nicotine plant known as Y-1, Sandefur said.

In a related development, Atty. Gen. Janet Reno said the Justice Department is reviewing charges that tobacco company executives may have lied in recent years about cigarette safety and nicotine addiction.

The Justice Department is responding to a request last month from seven members of Congress who asked for a criminal investigation based in part on their belief that industry executives may have committed perjury and other violations, such as fraud and conspiracy to obstruct Congress, in the last several decades.

Sandefur’s comments came two days after Kessler testified that B&W; officials, during a May 3 meeting with FDA representatives, failed to disclose the decade-long project after they were specifically asked whether they were engaged in any plant-breeding practices to raise or lower nicotine levels in tobacco. They told the FDA they were not involved in such work, Kessler said.

The project involved developing a tobacco plant, grown in Brazil, that yielded twice the nicotine of standard tobacco plants. B&W; shipped several million pounds of the plant from Brazil and used it in at least five of its American brands.

But Sandefur insisted Thursday that “the FDA never asked B&W; a single question about Y-1. . . . B&W; has never attempted to hide the existence of Y-1.”

Sandefur said he was not present at the May 3 meeting.

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Mitchell Zeller, an FDA special assistant for policy who attended the May 3 meeting, said B&W; officials were specifically asked whether they engaged in plant-breeding practices related to nicotine levels. They did not volunteer information about the Y-1 project, he said.

“That question was certainly an opportunity for them to come forward to us and say: ‘Let us tell you about Y-1,’ even though we didn’t put the question in terms of Y-1,” Zeller said when asked Thursday about Sandefur’s testimony.

Sandefur also said Kessler had “failed to say” that the brands using Y-1 “deliver essentially the same nicotine as the products they replaced. Some of the brands actually deliver less nicotine than the non-Y-1 blends for the same products and some were higher.”

The subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), has been conducting an investigation of the tobacco industry. Waxman, a leading Capitol Hill foe of tobacco, has authored legislation that would prohibit smoking in most public buildings and supports the FDA’s authority to regulate cigarettes as drugs.

The FDA is attempting to build a case to regulate cigarettes as drug-delivery systems because of the addictive nature of nicotine. But the agency has rejected the idea of an all-out ban.

One other federal agency, the Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which regulates job health and safety, has proposed rules that would ban smoking in all workplaces.

Reno said Justice Department officials “will look at all the information that we have received to determine what would be the appropriate action” to take in the perjury allegations.

“We want to review all the issues and make an appropriate determination as to what the role of the Justice Department should be, and we’re in the process of doing that,” she said during her weekly press briefing.

The letter from the seven members of Congress asked the department to look specifically at whether the tobacco company executives might have committed perjury during recent testimony before Congress when they insisted that nicotine is not addictive and that they do not deliberately spike their products with nicotine to “hook” smokers.

The department also was asked to examine whether the industry had been aware of the health dangers of cigarettes and had intentionally waged a decades-long effort to hide them from the public.

A law enforcement official familiar with the department’s inquiry said a review of perjury charges is “very preliminary” and probably would be difficult to sustain. The department’s antitrust division also was reported to be examining allegations that major manufacturers had worked together to suppress competition in the development of new, less hazardous cigarettes.

Reno said the civil division also is involved--reportedly to determine if federal labeling regulations were violated by manufacturers who added nicotine without disclosing it on cigarette packages.

In their testimony before Congress in April, which was delivered under oath, the executives acknowledged that cigarettes might increase the risk of developing some diseases but maintained they do not pose a definitive health hazard.

Griffin B. Bell, attorney general during the Jimmy Carter Administration and now a lawyer representing Sandefur, said in response to the allegations: “I’ve never heard of perjury based on giving an opinion. That would be an opinion that some folks might have a falling out over. We don’t put folks in jail for that--so far.”

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In their letter to Reno, the seven lawmakers said newly revealed internal documents showed that tobacco company officials in their testimony last month “deliberately misled Congress and the American people” about the dangers of smoking.

But lawyers who have followed the tobacco controversy agreed that it would be difficult to convict the executives on criminal charges of perjury.

“It takes a great deal of evidence to bring a perjury charge,” Abbe D. Lowell, a defense attorney and former Justice Department official, said in an interview.

“Most perjury cases are never brought unless you have two sworn statements that directly conflict. If a statement is couched as opinion, it’s almost impossible to bring a perjury charge.”

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Times staff writer David Savage contributed to this story.