Students packed Cardinal Hall Thursday night to talk aboutnicotine and the tobacco industry.
"We need more people like that to come to campus," graduatestudent Deborah Karls said after hearing former Philip Morrisresearcher Victor DeNoble's presentation. "He was such anenergetic, entertaining speaker."
DeNoble's speech raised awareness of science and how the tobaccoindustry behaved.
"You will not hear me say, 'You shouldn't smoke,'" he said. "Igive the information, but you are responsible for your owndecision."
As part of Greek Week, DeNoble's talk attracted a wide range ofpeople, from fraternities and sororities to faculty and members ofthe community.
"If you would've told me 24 years ago that I would be in themiddle of this major controversy," DeNoble said, "I wouldn't havebelieved you."
Little did DeNoble know that after being hired by Philip Morrisin the early 1980s, he would find himself at the center of a battleinvolving the nation's largest cigarette manufacturer.
"Nicotine goes from the lung to the heart to the brain in sevenseconds," he said. "They wanted me to find a drug that keeps youaddicted but doesn't harm your heart."
After countless experiments on rats, DeNoble concluded thatnicotine changes brain cells, not just of rats but also humans.
"Rats don't read magazines. Rats don't think it's sexy to smokeor watch movies," he said. "The nicotine changed their brains,making them become addicted."
DeNoble told Philip Morris executives of his findings numeroustimes. Each time they sent him away, telling him to "do the job heis paid to do." But, DeNoble continued his experiments, shiftingfrom rats to a monkey's brain and eventually a human's.
"This is Sara," DeNoble said as he pulled a monkey brain fromhis bag. "She stays in my refrigerator at home."
Sara, the monkey he experimented on in college, and a brain froma man who died of lung cancer, follow DeNoble around to his talks.Each were used in his research at Philip Morris.
When the tobacco executives found out that DeNoble had continuedhis experiments, they threatened to fire him, until they found outhe had developed the drug that would not harm the heart ifsmoked.
"This safe cigarette consisted of two filters and wouldeliminate 80 percent of cancerous material," he said.
However, executives approached him and told him they were notable to make the cigarette. Their reasoning: because it would savelives.
"They would have been contradicting what they had been tellingthe government since 1953," he said. "Making a safe cigarette wouldhave been proof they had lied, so they decided to let peopledie."
DeNoble was fired and forced to sign a gag order, silencing himuntil January 1994, when seven top tobacco industry executives wereto testify before Congress. After 10 years of silence, DeNobledecided to reveal his story to a federal judge and theinvestigation began, resulting in a $710 billion lawsuit againstPhilip Morris.
Since then, DeNoble has been speaking to groups, sometimes up to11 months out of the year.
"This is my life," he said proudly "I have to hope that this ismaking an impact."
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