Jury Hears Medical Articles in Minnesota Case

Over heated defense objections, portions of some of the most scathing articles ever published about the tobacco industry in a scholarly medical journal were read to the jury in the massive case filed against the nation’s cigarette companies by the state of Minnesota and Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Minnesota. Michael Ciresi, the lead plaintiff’s attorney, read excerpts of a July 19, 1995, editorial in the Journal of the American Medical Assn. and two related articles. The editorial, signed by 22 members of the American Medical Assn., said that 4,000 pages of internal documents from tobacco maker Brown & Williamson showed that research conducted by the industry about the deleterious health effects of tobacco was often more advanced and sophisticated than studies by the medical community and that the industry decided to conceal the truth from the public. The documents in question are the now-famous papers stolen by B&W; paralegal Merrill Williams. Ciresi was able to introduce the editorial because defense lawyer David Bernick had established that the journal was a credible source when he attempted to erode the credibility of the plaintiff’s first witness, Dr. Richard D. Hurt, director of the Mayo Clinic’s Nicotine Dependence Center.