Raymond Fagan

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This article is part of the Tobacco portal on Sourcewatch funded from 2006 - 2009 by the American Legacy Foundation.

Raymond Fagan was a Principal Scientist at Philip Morris Research Center in Richmond, Virginia, circa 1968-84.


Documents & Timeline

1980 Jan 22 Frank G Colby was Manager of Scientific Information Division at Rj Reynolds and a fierce critic of Philip Morris. However he became the Associate Director of Scientific Information in 1980 and he began cooperating with Philip Morris. He began ringing Ray Fagan, the Head of Research and Development at Philip Morris for scientist-to-scientist chats. Fagan recorded these conversations in a series of handwritten notes-to-file (obviously not trusting him)

  1. He is concerned about the lack of industry effort to counter the growing problem of passive smoking (later called ETS). The Roper report shows that the public perceive passive smoking as harmful. That's bad news. He is going to jack up his companies concern over this issue. Perhaps the Kansas City lawyers (Hoel and Sirridge) are lacksadaisical on the issue. Stakes are too high for the industry not to devote more effort on this.
  2. Was I aware of the Repace (EPA anti-smoking scientist) petition to CAB on particulates. This too is bad news. I told Colby about the piece i the MIT publication on particulates (carbon particles) in airplanes and the study which showed that the non-smoking section had as much particulates as the smoking section. Hence the separation was not effective. (MORE)
  3. (They discuss) a "public smoking" paper which had become a "prestige" fight between Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds, involving lawyers Ed Jacobs, Don Hoel and Mary Covington.
  4. Colby explained that the Verband in Germany is run by a committee of company executives who run it only to prop up the German interests. [1]

1980 Jan 24 Ray Fagan at Philip Morris records another telephone conversation with Frank G Colby, this time about Dr Gio B Gori (ex NCI research head - fired over Tobacco Working Group scandal):

  1. Colby called to ask what I though of Gio Gori. I said that I considered Gori an administrator and not a scientist. Colby told me that Gori's friends consider him to be 90% administrator and 10% scientist, while Gori's enemies consider him to be 99% administrator and 1% scientist.

All this was re; leading to telling me that John Wyatt, director of the Tobacco and Health Research Institute at the University of Kentucky died on January 22 and that Gori was interested in the position.

  1. Colby wanted to know whether I considered Gori a "friend of the industry". [His quotes] I said I did not think he was.
  2. If Gori were put in charge of the Institute at Kentucky it would be a disaster for the industry said Colby. He maintained this because he felt that Gori was not a "friend of the industry" and that Gori was not a good scientist. Colby will use all the influence he can muster to keep Gori out of the job as head of the Institute.
  3. I told Colby that I though the replacement for Wyatt had already been chosen. When it appeared that Wyatt was terminally ill, Ernie Chick was made deputy director of the Institute. My bet is that Ernie will get the job.[2]

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