HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS REGISTER		Author Keyword(s) Vol Page [Advanced]

This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Submit a response Alert me when this article is cited Alert me when eLetters are posted Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this link to a friend Similar articles in this journal Add article to my folders Download to citation manager Request Permissions Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Blanke, D D. Articles by Humphrey, H. H Search for Related Content PubMed Articles by Blanke, D D. Articles by Humphrey, H. H, III

Putting truth into action: using the evidence for justice

¹ Tobacco Law Center, William Mitchell College of Law, Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA
² School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

Correspondence to:
D Douglas Blanke
Tobacco Law Center, William Mitchell College of Law, 875 Summit Avenue, Saint Paul, Minnesota 55105-3076, USA; doug.blanke@wmitchell.edu

Keywords: depositions; litigations; testimony; tobacco documents

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The World Health Organization (WHO) calculates that, over the course of the 20th century, tobacco industry products claimed 100 million victims.¹ With no disrespect to the statisticians in Geneva, we’d put the toll at 100 million and one. In the tobacco epidemic, as in all of history’s wars, the first casualty was truth. For half a century, it lay beneath a mountain of cover-ups, distortions and lies. And we’re still digging out.

Fortunately, facts are stubborn things. They have a way of prevailing, sooner or later, against even the most sophisticated of corporate conspiracies. Sooner or later. That’s the problem, of course, because, in the end, buying time is what this conspiracy is about. "Doubt is our product," as a candid Brown & Williamson document puts it.² A decade of doubt means billions of dollars in profits. Not to mention 50 million victims.

TRUTH MATTERS
That’s why the truth matters, and matters . . . [Full text of this article]