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Donald K. Hoel was an attorney who worked with the Council for Tobacco Research and Tobacco Industry Research Committee (TIRC). Donald Hoel was an attorney with Philip Morris' law firm Shook, Hardy and Bacon (SHB). He served as a member of the Council for Tobacco Research in 1978. Hoel assisted in screening "apppropriate" research projects to received Council for Tobacco Research funding.

Biography

Hoel served on occasion as secretary at INFOTAB meetings. Per Donald Hoel's 11/6/78 memo, Janet and Arnie Henson expressed American Tobacco Company's view that Council for Tobacco Research must be maintained but needed new people. ATC felt that CTR must be more politically oriented. The Hensons felt that the approach must be steady, slow and conservative. They felt CTR must strive to find skeptical scientists. The staff at Council for Tobacco Research also needed to be more tobacco-oriented with a skeptical view.(Judge H.L. Sarokin, Haines opinion 2/6/92; Haines documents in limine #01347203 et seq.)

Hoel appears to be an early architect of the tobacco industry's public relations strategy of taking the public's attention off the key subject of health, and drawing it instead to other topics, like the industry's contributions to employment, revenue and "Old Age Pensions."

Although the Royal College of Physicians' ground-breaking "Smoking and Health" report was issued in 1962, and the U.S. Surgeon General's first report conclusively linking smoking with disease was issued in 1964, Hoel wrote in a 1979 memo:

"At present we are accused of being sponsors of 'unhealthy living.' This is unproven in terms of current evidence, but public authorities and the community at large interpret the evidence at present available as proof against us...We therefore have to ensure that the debate about our Industry is not concentrated purely on the issue of Smoking & Health. Other matters on which we must concentrate, and where we can show that we make a beneficial contribution include: contributions to revenue, employment, agriculture, Old Age Pension, etc."

Hoel described how the tobacco industry had to continue to undermine public health authorities and reassure frightened smokers by convincing them that smoking is beneficial:

In the meantime, it is equally important that we re-assure our consumers and re-establish their confidence in smoking...Doubt has to be sown in the case put by our detractors...We must emphasize the positive aspects of smoking - relief from stress, etc.

It cannot be argued that Hoel did not know that a solid case linking smoking to disease had been built by medical authorities by this time, since he stated in this memo,

"It has taken years to establish the case against smoking and we cannot expect to refute it overnight."

Hoel sent this memo to Alexander Holtzman, PM's Assistant General Counsel. The memo reveals Hoel as a damaging player in public health efforts against smoking worldwide. [1][2]

This article may include information from Tobacco Documents Online.