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Cancer Control Research

Abstract

DESCRIPTION: (Applicant's Description) This project will analyze the depositions and trial testimony for tobacco lawsuits filed in the United States during the 1990s, to assess what they reveal in areas such as nicotine addiction and pharmacology, the health consequences of tobacco use, tobacco-product design and manufacturing, tobacco advertising and promotion, youth smoking initiation, and tobacco use cessation. The litigation documents to be studied will include those from the following lawsuits: 1) the state Attorney General (AG) cases (and similar cases filed by counties and cities); 2) the class actions (e.g., Castano cases, Broin, Engle), 3) the individual health-effects cases, 4) third-party reimbursement cases patterned after the AG cases (e.g., those filed by union-managed health and welfare funds and Blue Cross Blue Shield plans); and 5) other, miscellaneous cases (e.g., secondhand-smoke cases, Mangini case, cigarette fire damage suits, litigation involving federal agencies [e.g., the FDA and the U.S. EPA], and international/foreign claims filed in U.S. courts). Transcripts (and related exhibits) will be collected for the depositions and trials from law firms, courts, court reporters and their transcription firms, individual witnesses, and any other available sources. They will be formatted, coded, and made available on the World Wide Web in an easily searchable database called the Tobacco Deposition and Trial Testimony Archive (Tobacco DATTA). Eleven research teams will analyze the material in Tobacco DATTA in different topical areas, using qualitative and quantitative methods. The outcomes of the project will be: 1) the creation of a new, rich, accessible, user-friendly database pertaining to tobacco industry documents, research, knowledge, conduct, and strategies; and 2) research articles and reports, based on study of that database, concerning many important aspects of tobacco and health.