In the big-screen rendition of Jeffrey Wigand's battle against Big Tobacco-The Insider-Al Pacino screams, "The more truth [Wigand] tells, the worse it gets!" At a speech in the law school Monday afternoon, Wigand himself said he had to live through a corruption and cover-up rollercoaster to realize how true that was.
The former vice president and scientific expert for tobacco giant Brown & Williamson held a packed room of law students spellbound as he recounted his Hollywood-worthy story as the highest-powered whistleblower in the history of the industry.
Employed by the tobacco company from 1988 to 1994, Wigand uncovered evidence that B&W manipulated levels of nicotine in cigarettes, used a harmful additive to take the harsh edge off pipe tobacco and hid proof that the industry could create a safer cigarette.
Threatened by the potential consequences of his discoveries, he said, B&W made his life difficult to ensure that the information would never make it to the public: Over a 10-year period, Wigand said, he lost his job, received death threats and was faced with a barrage of lawsuits.
Wigand-who said he thought he was hired by B&W to help create a safer cigarette-began his lecture by citing the frightening reality he saw from the inside of the tobacco industry.
"There was a duplicity for the public," he said. "But on the inside, the mantra was, 'Hook 'em young and hook 'em for life.'"
In November 1989, Wigand attended a convention of scientific tobacco analysts, where they discussed and created a report on the environmental and health hazards of tobacco and the possibility of creating a non-addictive version of nicotine and a non-flammable cigarette.
"When [the head of B&W] got word of the report, he had a fit," Wigand said. "He called the assistant general counsel... ordered him to rewrite the entire documentation, and two-and-a-half pages of vanilla became the permanent record."
Wigand said that even though he was aware of the corruption within the web of tobacco corporations, he was not prepared to take a stand against the industry.
But he began to think again in January 1990, when the entire industry moved to remove a carcinogenic additive from cigarettes, while B&W kept the additive in its pipe tobacco to maintain a smoother taste and better smell.
Wigand later received a toxicology report that listed the additive as a "lung-specific" toxin, and brought the findings to the head of the company. "I was told to mind my own business," he said.
After twice questioning B&W's policies, Wigand was fired in March 1994. B&W settled with him in June 1994 for a severance agreement and health care benefits.
But one month later, B&W sued Wigand for abridging his severance agreement of confidentiality, on the grounds that he illegally discussed his salary with another employee. "At that point, all I wanted to do was get away," he said.
Wigand soon received a call from 60 Minutes Producer Lowell Bergman, who needed his scientific expertise to clarify B&W documents from as early as the 1950s. After delving into the company's archives, Wigand said, he was appalled to find that in 1985 and 1986 Philip Morris had developed and tested a fire-safe cigarette, but chose not to market the product.
In 1994, Wigand watched a table of high-powered tobacco executives pledge that cigarettes were not harmful to people's health.
"That indelible image played over and over in my mind until I realized that I could not go forward in silence," he said.
In April 1995, Wigand agreed to conduct an interview about the tobacco industry with Mike Wallace of 60 Minutes. But after B&W threatened a series of lawsuits against Wigand and CBS, the network was forced to kill the program before it ever aired.
After one of Wigand's depositions leaked to The Wall Street Journal, however, his candid interview finally aired in February 1996. Eventually, B&W dropped its lawsuit against him.
Today Wigand, who said his life has settled down since his days of death threats, uses his expertise in public health to help elementary school children maintain high self-esteem and learn the dangers of smoking early.
"I'd like to see a portion of the settlement [with the tobacco companies] go into keeping children from being targeted by tobacco companies," he said.
But as normal as his life may be now, Wigand's story is currently playing in theaters everywhere. "I had nothing to do with the movie," he said, "but it reflected tremendous fidelity to actual events... both emotionally [and] literally, but especially philosophically."
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