
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 22, 1994                   TAG: 9406240044
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

HIGH-OCTANE TOBACCO BRED

Food and Drug Administration Commissioner David Kessler, explicitly rejecting a tobacco industry claim that it does not manipulate nicotine levels in cigarettes, Tuesday described a secret project by one company to genetically engineer a tobacco plant with twice the nicotine content of standard tobacco.

In congressional testimony, Kessler released the results of an agency investigation into a decade-long project by the Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. The company developed and grew in Central and South America a high-nicotine plant known as Y-1, brought several million pounds of it from Brazil, and used it in at least five of its American brands, he said.

Appearing before the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on health, Kessler also said that several tobacco companies chemically regulate nicotine by adding ammonia, a substance that ``liberates'' nicotine from the tobacco blend, in effect delivering more nicotine to the smoker. Last April, cigarette manufacturers released a list of 599 ingredients added to tobacco, including ammonia, but did not describe the reasons for adding them.

Industry officials have repeatedly denied that they deliberately spike their products with nicotine. However, they have acknowledged that nicotine levels can be changed through the blending of different tobaccos, and that all of their companies engage in this practice.

Asked about the Brown & Williamson project, a company spokesman said Kessler had misrepresented its motives. The objective of the Y-1 operation, he said, was to enhance flavor.

Kessler's examples and other evidence the agency is gathering will likely serve as the legal and scientific underpinnings of the case the agency is building to support its regulatory authority over cigarettes. The FDA has been exploring the possibility of regulating cigarettes as drug-delivery systems because of the addictive nature of nicotine.

FDA officials believe they would have statutory authority over nicotine if it can be proved conclusively that nicotine is addictive, and that its levels in cigarettes can be controlled.

Ann Witt, FDA's special assistant to the deputy commissioner for operations, told the subcommittee that during a May 3 meeting with Brown & Williamson executives, she asked whether the company had bred a high-nicotine plant. They denied it, saying ``it wasn't feasible,'' she said.

Last week, however, when confronted with the results of the FDA inquiry, the company admitted that it had done so, Witt said.

Furthermore, the company, which had been seeking a patent for the plant, withdrew its application in March, Kessler said. He refused to speculate about the company's reasons for doing so. But committee chairman Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., a leading congressional foe of tobacco, noted that the action occurred less than two weeks before Kessler disclosed that the FDA would study the possibility of cigarette regulation.

Kessler said Brown & Williamson cigarettes Viceroy King Size, Viceroy Lights King Size, Richland King Size, Richland Lights King Size and Raleigh Lights King Size all contain approximately 10 percent of the genetically bred high-nicotine tobacco.

by CNB