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Wed 12 Nov 2003
Tobacco giant claims there is no proof that smoking kills
JOHN ROBERTSON LAW CORRESPONDENT
THE chief executive of a cigarette manufacturer at the centre of a landmark court case maintained yesterday that he did not know whether smoking killed.
Gareth Davis, 53, the chief executive of Imperial Tobacco, said health warnings were carried on packets to comply with European directives. He added: "We do not know whether some of these messages are correct."
Asked if his company accepted that smoking kills, Mr Davis insisted: "I think the answer is we do not know. It may do, but we do not know." He said that, after decades of research, the role of smoking in diseases such as lung cancer remained unknown. There had been much "statistical association", but that did not "equal causation".
Mr Davis, who has a salary package worth more than £1 million a year, was giving evidence at the Court of Session in Edinburgh where Margaret McTear, 58, of Ayrshire, is claiming £500,000 damages from Imperial over the death of her husband, Alf, 48, from lung cancer in 1993.
The court heard that Mr Davis started smoking in his mid-teens and had worked for Imperial since 1972. Colin McEachran, QC, for Mrs McTear, asked if Mr Davis accepted that Imperial had a duty to take reasonable care for the safety of the consumers of its cigarettes.
"I think Imperial as a manufacturer has a duty to provide products to its customers that are fit for their purpose," replied Mr Davis.
Mr Davis was shown a number of packets of cigarettes produced by Imperial. He said they carried various warnings, such as "smoking causes fatal lung cancer" and "smoking kills". He said that, in recent years, the warnings had been required by EC directives. Previously, starting in 1971, they had been ordered by the government.
Mr McEachran wondered whether Imperial accepted that "smoking kills". Mr Davis said: "It may do, but we do not know."
Did smoking cause fatal lung cancer? "We do not know that ... we do not know whether some of these
messages are correct," said Mr Davis.
He added: "I think it is fair to say we believe smokers are far more likely to develop serious diseases like lung cancer than non-smokers.
"We would agree there is no safe cigarette."
Mr McEachran asked: "Does that not mean you agree that smoking causes lung cancer?"
Mr Davis stated: "No it does not mean that. What I would answer to that is over the years there has been a significant amount of statistical association between smoking and certain diseases, including lung cancer, but I think most scientists would agree that statistical association does not equal causation."
Mr Davis agreed that, on the issue of smoking being a cause of lung cancer, the judgment of other cigarette manufacturers had been different to Imperial.
He denied that Imperial had adopted its position to avoid litigation.
Mr Davis was questioned about smoking being addictive. He said Imperial’s position was that it agreed that, under certain definitions, smoking would be categorised as an addiction.
Mr McEachran referred to a government white paper on tobacco issued in 1998.
In the preface, Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, had said that, in Britain, more than 120,000 people were going to die in the next year from illnesses directly related to smoking.
The figure had been supplied by the Royal College of Physicians.
Mr Davis said he had no reason to question the figure, but he did not know if it was correct. It was a figure that he had seen in many statements from the government or a member of government.
The case continues.
This article:
http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/index.cfm?id=1250322003