Dr. Jeffrey Wigand

Dr. Jeffrey Wigand

        Dr. Jeffrey Wigand has been called the, “The Man Who Knew Too Much”, a top scientist who became the first insider to ‘blow the whistle’ on his former employer. Dr. Wigand was born in New York in 1942 to a strict Catholic family and was the oldest of five children. After dropping out of college, he to joined the military and was stationed in a Vietnam where he learned the Japanese language, and studied health and martial arts. When he returned home, he continued his education at the University of Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, and he earned his doctorate in biochemistry.

After working for various companies in the health care field for over 17 years, Dr. Wigand took a job at Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation (B & W) as Vice President of research and development. His initial assignment was to develop a new, healthier cigarette that could be placed into the competitive market. He was given a substantial budget to complete this project along with a staff of almost 250 people. After he began working at B & W, he discovered his lab was outdated and the company had no real intentions to study the health risks of tobacco and its products.

In a proven lab study, a rat and a mouse were used to test the chemical Coumarin which can be found in cigarettes. This study showed that the chemical did cause cancer, however the work reports only stated that there was “increased biological activity” in the rat and mouse. Dr. Wigand soon discovered that this statement was indeed just another word for cancer that the company used in work reports. Dr. Wigand also learned that Brown & Williamson had a million dollar budget to prevent any literature from stating that cigarettes would be harmful to a smoker’s health. This made him very suspicious of the inner workings of the company and he began to keep notes of his findings.

In March of 1993 Dr. Jeffery Wigand was fired from the Brown & Williamson after he publicly stated that he knew the corporate executives in the company knowingly approved the addition of additives to their cigarettes that were known to be carcinogenic and addictive. He was also asked to sign a confidentiality agreement to keep him expanding even further on his findings of the harmful effects of the chemicals in cigarettes. In order to keep his health care benefits, Dr. Wigand agreed to sign this agreement but after some time ended up going to the media anyway and paid a heavy price for his honesty. His career was ruined, and his family was torn apart after an interview he gave to CBS television’s 60 Minutes about his time with B & W.