Doctor: Industry pressured smoking researchers

MIAMI (AP) Federal scientists were under ``intense pressure'' from the
tobacco industry to soften their conclusions on the dangers of secondhand
smoke, according to a doctor testifying in a lawsuit by flight
attendants against tobacco companies.

Dr. David Burns, who wrote the 1975 surgeon general's report on smoking,
testified Thursday during the second week of testimony in a $5 billion lawsuit
by flight attendants who blame a variety of illnesses on smoky cabin air.

``We would tend to look at what the data could show, and then we'd take one
step back in order to be conservative because we knew that anything we said
would be intensely criticized by the tobacco companies,'' he said.

Burns, a pulmonologist with the University of California at San Diego, also
testified that cigarettes are ``very addictive.''

``This is an agent that takes ahold of people with the same kind of power as
the other agents that we think of as addicting in our society: heroin,
cocaine, et cetera,'' he said.

But David Hardy, attorney for the tobacco companies Philip Morris and
Lorillard, noted the first surgeon general's report to conclude smoking is
addictive was issued in 1988 and the initial report on smoking in 1964
listed it simply as a dependence.

But Burns said even cocaine did not qualify as an addictive drug under the
definition used in 1964.

Smoking was banned on short flights in 1988 and on all U.S. domestic flights
in 1990.

The lawsuit could prove to be the last major tobacco case to be decided
by a jury because of the proposed $368 billion nationwide settlement
that would erase such suits.

The trial is in recess until Tuesday.