U.S. Tobacco Lawyer Accuses DOJ Witness of Plagiarism in Racketeering Suit Against Big Tobacco

Reuters

A tobacco industry lawyer accused a witness for the U.S. government of plagiarism on Thursday, trying to undermine his testimony that tobacco smoke causes illness and developmental problems in young children.

Michael Minton, a defense lawyer for Lorillard Tobacco in the $280 billion racketeering case, charged that pediatric scientist Michael Weitzman had "transplanted" large parts of a 1999 World Health Organization report into the conclusions of his own trial report on how parents' smoking affects children.

In his report drafted at the request of the government in 2001, Weitzman concluded that secondhand smoke from parents, both during pregnancy and after birth, increased the incidence of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), ear infections and cognitive and behavioral problems in children.

The accusation of plagiarism angered Weitzman. He conceded that some of the wording in his report was identical to the WHO report but pointed out that it had been footnoted and said there "was no guile intended."

"I saw nothing improper in this," said Weitzman, executive director of the American Academy of Pediatrics Center for Child Health Research.

The government charges cigarette makers lied and tried to confuse the public about the dangers of smoking as part of a 50-year industry conspiracy.

The tobacco companies deny they conspired to promote smoking and say the government has no grounds to pursue them after they drastically changed marketing practices as part of a 1998 settlement with state attorneys general.

Weitzman, testifying in the trial's seventh week, cited a report earlier this year by the U.S. Surgeon General that found children were twice as likely to die from SIDS if they had a smoking parent and three times as likely if their mother smoked during pregnancy.

Weitzman said he agreed with the Surgeon General that scientists could "infer a causal relationship."

Minton for Lorillard, argued that Weitzman had used vague and subjective criteria to reach his conclusion. And he cited past statements in which the pediatrician had conceded that in some cases the relationship was not absolutely certain or was "controversial."

In a separate development, the government has given Kessler a list of 10 people it is planning to add to its lineup of live witnesses, including Reynolds Chairman Andrew Schindler and the general counsels of Philip Morris and Lorillard.

They had been among a long list of people for whom the government was planning to submit testimony from previous smoking lawsuits. But under a recent ruling from the judge, the government was granted permission to call 10 additional witnesses to the stand.