Custom essays on Jeffrey Wigand

Jeffrey Wigand is a former vice president of development and research at Brown & Williamson Tobacco, in Kentucky. He worked on the creation of reduced-harm cigarettes at the end of eighties and beginning of nineties. Wigand breached confidentiality agreements and spread the trade secrets to a television network which is called CBS and the Federal government (Salter, 2002).
Wigand was born on the 17th of December, 1942 in Bronx, in the family of a mechanical engineer. The atmosphere in the family was strict Catholic and he was the oldest of five children. As a talented, gifted student, he spent a lot of time in the atmosphere of science labs and had plans to study medicine, until he decided join Air Force. In 1961, he went to work in the base hospital to Misawa, which is an American base in Japan. There is learned Japanese leant more about martial arts. When he came back to America, he finished his studying at the University of Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. After earning his doctorate he and started to work in a health-care company. Some time later, in 1981 he met his wife Lucretia and in 5 years they married. After some time Wigand moved up the corporate ladder and took responsible positions. Wigand preferred to tell what he had in his mind, but it wasn’t always good for his management. After spending 17 years in the field of health-care, in 1988 he began his work for Brown & Williamson, which was the tobacco company. The initial assignment of Wigand was to developing a new, healthier cigarette in order to put into a competitive market. His staff was 243 people and the budget of department was more than $30 million. After a while he saw no evidence of health in the tobacco research and found his lab outdated. Starting from the ’60s, there were researches which claimed that cigarettes were harmful and caused cancer soon Wigand found out that tobacco was a real reason of diseases, including cancer. All documents were secret and the company spent millions of dollars trying to hide the information that a smoker was damaged while using the product. Soon Wigand stopped trust colleagues and he became a problem for the company with his questions and criticism. At the end of 1992 he protested to the use of coumarin in cigarettes, because it was proven to be a reason of death for rats and mice, but he was told that the removal of that technology could impact sales.

The anger started to develop in him and he continued his study on the additives` properties. In March 1993, Wigand was fired; his diary and all papers were confiscated. The daughter of Wigand was sick with Spina Bifida and he was in need of insurance coverage. In order to receive his severance benefits, he agreed to sign an agreement about confidentiality, that he would not divulge the policy of the company. In September, Wigand was sued by B&W so his health insurance and severance benefits were suspended. The company blames him in violating his confidentiality pledge. They knew that Wigand had been invited to be a part of Justice Department investigation into Philip Morris’ “fire safe” cigarette program in 1993. The producer of “60 Minutes” Lowell Bergman, met with Wigand when he was making a story on Philip Morris’ “fire safe” cigarette and asked Wigand to help him to understand the secret Philip Morris documents which were sent to him anonymously (Lyman, 1999). In February 1994, ABC’s newsmagazine, “Day One,” broadcast a story explaining that Philip Morris “spiked” the presence of nicotine in its cigarettes. During the whole time of the story’s production, Wigand was paid $12,000 as a consultant. After some time, in The Justice Department started a criminal investigation into possible perjury by seven tobacco company executives who insured that “nicotine is not addictive.” Jeffrey Wigand was the ABC`s expert defense witness. On August 3, Wigand together with his wife agreed to take part in the interview with Mike Wallace on “60 Minutes.” At the end of August, ABC News agreed to apologize for the “Day One” report made if February 1994, which said that Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds manipulated and controlled the nicotine levels to addict smokers. After that ABC agreed to pay all fees; it was $15 million. Wigand said that B&W Tobacco Corp. had declined their plans to make a safer cigarette, so they still used a flavoring in pipe tobacco, which caused cancer in lab animals. Also he supposed that Thomas Sandefur was guilty of perjury when he insured the Congress that nicotine was not addictive. Thanks to Wigand, The Wall Street Journal wrote an article about the fact that “60 Minutes” found it too dangerous to tell that the reports showed that the top U.S. tobacco companies enhance nicotine delivery to smokers by adding to the cigarettes the ammonia-based compounds. Later, in 1996, the Journal won a Pulitzer Prize for that article. Jeffrey Wigand took part in a civil action against tobacco manufacturers, which was held by the Mississippi state. By 1994, Wigand didn’t have a job, was drinking a lot, so his marriage suffered from his daughter’s illness and the fallout of his public battle, so they divorced. In 1995, Wigand became a teacher of Japanese, moved into another apartment in Louisville. Brown & Williamson blamed Wigand in theft, fraud and breach of contract. The lawsuit was dismissed because the agreement between government and tobacco industry on the 20th of June 1997 (Esperon, 2005). Wigand was awarded and got the recognition of society for his action in revealing tobacco company research. Just now he still tries to reduce teen tobacco use through his non-profit organization Smoke-Free Kids, Inc.

Works Cited:

Esperon, Cheri. A Short Biography of Jeffery Wigand. (October 11, 2005).

Lyman, Rick. A Tobacco Whistle-Blower’s Life Is Transformed. The New York Times. (October 15, 1999).
Salter, Chuck. Jeffrey Wigand: The Whistle-Blower. (April 30, 2002).