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| S P E C I A L | Tobacco Under Attack |
Industry exec: Tobacco no worse than tomato juice
Likens smoking to chocolate and caffeine
August 19, 1997
Web posted at: 5:40 p.m. EDT (2140 GMT)MIAMI (CNN) -- A tobacco company executive testified Tuesday that large quantities of tomato juice can produce the same cancerous tumors on mice that tobacco does.
The testimony of Donald Johnston, president and chief executive officer of the American Tobacco Co., was read to the jury in the $5 billion lawsuit filed on behalf of more than 60,000 flight attendants.
The attendants claim that they contracted smoking-related illnesses from breathing smoke from the cigarettes of airline passengers.
Johnston's company manufactures Pall Mall, Lucky Strike and Carleton cigarette brands. His testimony came in the form of a deposition taken in July 1994.
Johnston did not testify in person because a Florida subpoena has no jurisdiction outside the state. American Tobacco is now owned by Brown and Williamson Tobacco Corp., which is headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky.
The plaintiffs' attorney, Stanley Rosenblatt, asked Johnston about a 1953 clinical study by the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center showing that when tobacco was rubbed on mice, cancerous skin tumors developed.
"An excessive quantity of tomato juice would have done that, as I recall," Johnston responded. "I don't know if there's anything to do with the human consumption of cigarettes at all."
Rosenblatt shot back, "Someone told you if you took enough tomato juice and rubbed enough tomato juice on mice, that would cause cancerous tumors?"
Johnston: "I have a general recollection of that, yes."
Rosenblatt: "Who said that? I want to meet that person."
Johnston: "I don't know."
No worse than chocolate or caffeine?
Johnston also disagreed with the surgeon general's declaration that smoking causes cancer. "He put it on a level with heroin," Johnston said, "and I don't agree with that."
Johnston agreed that smoking is a risk factor, but said he does not believe it causes cancer. He likened cigarette smoking, instead, to the consumption of chocolate and caffeine.
Because most of the witnesses have testified either by deposition or videotape, the jury hasn't heard from a live witness in more than a week.
The judge and the attorneys are worried about the jury's ability to concentrate during such testimony, which is often tedious and repetitive.
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