When a young drug researcher is hired by a tobacco company, Victor DeNoble unexpectedly discovers the ingredients of add | dG1fNXVtM0w2czc5Mmc
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00My name is Victor DeNoble. I'm a scientist. The story I'm about to tell you, it begins
00:0629 years ago. I get a phone call from a guy named Bill Dunn. He said, I have a job for
00:10you. He said, I work at Philip Morris and we make cigarettes. We got a problem. 138,000
00:15people will have heart attacks and brain strokes every year caused by nicotine. You guys make
00:20a product that you know kills people? He said, no, no, no, we don't kill anybody. Nicotine
00:25does. But we have a program. Philip Morris recognized that it was in their interest to
00:32find products that killed less people. Dead people don't buy cigarettes. To a scientist,
00:38that's a dream. You get to do a job that actually might make a difference. I proposed a design
00:43to the company, a cigarette that had tobacco, but no nicotine. Our drug would be in there
00:47with no heart disease. But there was a catch. They were also doing research to make more
00:52addictive products. When the two worlds collided, less harmful or more addictive, they chose
00:58more addictive. When you go to work for Philip Morris, you sign a secrecy agreement for the
01:02rest of your life. You're not allowed to divulge what you did there. Imagine 50 years of the
01:07secrets of an industry that had kept secrets better than any industry. If I resisted these
01:13guys, they could ruin my career. But if I didn't resist them, what's my career worth?
01:20Victor DeNoble was the first whistleblower. It was nothing like we'd ever seen. It's a huge story. Huge, huge, huge.
01:28It changed the debate on tobacco, and it opened the floodgates of attacks on the tobacco industry.
01:34They came to our houses, set up surveillance, took photographs of me in front of my front
01:38lawn playing with my kids. They both unbuttoned their jackets, and I could see a holster.
01:43My heart just stopped. They weren't interested in science. They were interested in threatening
01:47There were TV, media people everywhere. There was no turning back. But it was not going
01:52to stop the tidal wave that was about to hit the tobacco industry.