Regulation: Heads Butt Over an Ad

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Big Tobacco was under attack once again last week. The Federal Trade Commission formally charged the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. (now a subsidiary of RJR Nabisco Inc.) with illegally misleading the public in purporting to summarize the results of a ten-year, $115 million U.S. Government-funded research study on the relationship between smoking and heart disease, among other things. Reynolds described the project, known as the Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial, in an advertisement that ran in various publications from February through June 1985. The company's conclusion: "The controversy over smoking and health remains an open one."

The FTC said the study showed that smokers who quit had lower rates of heart disease than unrepentant smokers, and averred that the Reynolds ad misrepresented the study results. Reynolds officials insisted that their p.r. effort was simply an editorial position and was thus protected by the First Amendment. The FTC's complaint, said a company spokesman, is "a misuse of its investigative powers." Reynolds has retained well-known First Amendment Lawyer Floyd Abrams as an adviser before a hearing next month by an FTC administrative-law judge on the charges.