William Anthony Farone served as Philip Morris’s Director of Applied Research from 1976 to 1984, where he was assigned to develop less harmful cigarettes and explore businesses beyond tobacco. After leaving the company, Farone became a witness for plaintiffs and government officials in tobacco litigation. His employment history and subsequent testimony made him an important, though adversarial, source on the company’s internal research practices; the source states that he was fired, but does not provide the circumstances of his termination.
In testimony in the Donald A. LaBelle case in July 2000, Farone claimed that the industry had long possessed the technical means to make cigarettes safer, but that safety required biological-toxicity testing rather than simply altering tar or nicotine measurements. He also alleged that Philip Morris manipulated nicotine and tar ratios, internally accepted nicotine’s addictive and disease-causing effects while publicly denying them, and deliberately prolonged the smoking-and-health controversy. Farone further said Philip Morris-linked Chrysalis Technologies had developed soft-mist aerosol technology that could deliver nicotine without conventional smoking, but that cigarette companies had little incentive to commercialize it because doing so could undermine cigarette profits. These allegations are attributed to Farone’s testimony and do not, in this source alone, establish a final legal finding against Philip Morris.
