Word: tobacco
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...When Senator John McCain introduced FDA regulatory legislation in 1998, the company spent a reported $100 million successfully fighting it. But since then, Philip Morris has had a crucial realization. With 50% of the U.S. tobacco market already safely in the company's pocket - and more than 50% of 18- to 25-year-old smokers loyal to its top brand, Marlboro - restrictive legislation will effectively lock in its market dominance, preventing any competitors from taking a bite out of Philip Morris' very lucrative business. (See vintage cigarette propaganda...
...aligning itself with strange bedfellows like the Campaign for Smoke-Free Kids, the American Lung Association and longtime antismoking crusaders Senator Ted Kennedy and Representative Henry Waxman. "Philip Morris wants the public-health community to join them in finding the holy grail: the safe cigarette," says Gregory Connolly, a tobacco expert and professor at the Harvard School of Public Health. Simply put, figuring out how to produce a less harmful tobacco product and getting an FDA seal of approval could open up a whole new, potentially huge consumer market...
...distinct advantage over its competitors. In 2007, the same year that nearly identical FDA legislation was introduced in Congress, Philip Morris opened a 450,000-sq.-ft. (42,000 sq m) research facility in Richmond, Va. The complex is filled with hundreds of employees, including scientists studying new tobacco technologies that Philip Morris is hoping to get through the new FDA approval process...
...Working on products that are potentially less harmful is something we've been working on for some time," says company spokesman William Phelps. A June 10 market-research report from the firm Fitch Ratings says Philip Morris spent $232 million on tobacco research and "reduced-harm products" in 2008. And just in case the FDA agrees with Big Tobacco (and some scientists) that chewing instead of smoking the leaf is "safer," Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds have acquired the largest and second largest chewing-tobacco companies, respectively, in the past four years. (See a video of France's smoking...
...This support of increased government oversight, which Philip Morris first endorsed in 2001, has given even some backers of the bill pause. "It is a concern that the tobacco industry is involved" in the legislation, admits David Burns, a leading tobacco researcher who has testified in court that "light" cigarettes are no less harmful than regular ones and has conducted studies for the World Health Organization and U.S. government. Big Tobacco "has a very dark and aggressive history of trying to change both science and public policy to its economic favor," he says. Still, like the vast majority...