Tobacco Documents to Be More Available to The Public

Source from:  Third Age 12/19/2011

Two major U.S. tobacco companies are working to make public access to their internal industry documents easier and more widely available. According to UPI, the agreement is the result of a settlement with Philip Morris USA and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. Both companies will pay $6.25 million into a court fund intended to provide the largest online collection of tobacco documents. The settlement came after a dispute between Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds and the government erupted over the court-ordered database in 2006. The government brought charges against the two companies for suppressing internal documents that detailed the dangers of smoking and its likelihood to create addiction. The payout from Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds will go to the University of California, San Francisco, which runs the database. The Legacy Tobacco Documents Library-or legacy.library.ucsf.edu-holds all of the documents the tobacco industry was required to turn over in U.S. smoking lawsuits for the past 15 years. A hard-copy archive in Minnesota also exists. "This agreement helps make sure that these documents will be accessible to researchers, journalists, students, lawyers, the government and the public at large," said assistant attorney general Tony West of the civil division of the Department of Justice. The database is for "anyone who is interested in learning more about the defendants' efforts to mislead consumers about the effects of smoking." A portion of the money will go to finance broadcast and print ads promoting the database and covering the dangers of nicotine, the Boston Globe reported. Enditem