THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, March 27, 1996 TAG: 9603270397
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LAURAN NEERGAARD, ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: CHESTER, VA. LENGTH: Medium: 93 lines
Deep in the heart of tobacco country, the world's largest cigarette maker meshes stems and other plant debris into paperlike sheets, soaks them in steaming nicotine and turns them into smokable tobacco.
How the Park 500 factory squeezes the most cigarettes from tobacco debris is at the center of new allegations, in federal affidavits unveiled last week, that Philip Morris controls every drop of nicotine along the way.
Philip Morris, maker of best-selling Marlboro cigarettes, vehemently denies the charges and has fought back by opening some portions - but not all - of a factory long shrouded in mystery. ``There is a terrible, terrible lot of confusion about reconstituted tobacco,'' contended Philip Morris engineering chief Dick Merrill.
Cigarettes once were made entirely of rich tobacco leaves, and the stems, dust and other debris were sent to landfills.
To save money, Philip Morris and other tobacco companies learned to turn that debris into a cheap filler called reconstituted tobacco that today is used in almost every cigarette. Basically, they mesh tobacco debris into paperlike sheets, much as paper mills create newsprint.
The process washes natural nicotine out of tobacco fibers. The issue is how Philip Morris puts the nicotine back - and in what amounts.
Philip Morris told Congress it doesn't adjust the nicotine, or even measure it, except once in raw tobacco and once in finished cigarettes. Scientists say nicotine is the chemical that hooks smokers, but tobacco companies contend it is not addictive.
But sealed documents from Philip Morris' now-settled libel lawsuit against ABC-TV, obtained by The Associated Press in January, accused Philip Morris of running a ``nicotine extract factory'' where employees repeatedly measured nicotine as the tobacco brewed.
The Food and Drug Administration had not seen such testing in a visit to the Park 500 factory. So the FDA investigated again. And former Philip Morris research director William Farone told the agency last week:
``By controlling the ingredients that go into making reconstituted tobacco, the industry controls the chemical and physical properties . . . including its nicotine content.''
When whole tobacco leaves are set aside for cigarettes, their stems and other dusty debris go to Park 500. There, hot water separates plant fibers from nicotine, sugars and other ``solubles'' naturally in tobacco.
The pure plant fibers, the consistency of wet sawdust, are cut up in huge grinders. Jets spray the waterlogged mix over huge screens that are dried into light brown, paperlike sheets.
Meanwhile, the chocolate-brown ``solubles'' drain into huge pipes for separate processing. Leftover fiber is screened out. Excess water is evaporated until the ``concentrated extract'' contains 48 percent nicotine and other solubles and 52 percent water - something openly measured on the factory floor.
The paperlike tobacco cannot soak up any more nicotine extract than 48 percent, explained Merrill, the Philip Morris engineer.
Then Philip Morris removes nitrates, a potentially poisonous natural chemical, and pours in final ingredients from large vats, including ammonia.
Because tobacco naturally contains ammonia, cigarette makers insist adding more merely enhances flavor. But former company scientist Farone backed FDA assertions that ammonia can boost smokers' absorption of nicotine.
Then comes the most controversial part: measuring the nicotine extract in a sophisticated machine called a gas chromatograph before the liquid gushes onto the dry tobacco sheet - and again when newly nicotinized tobacco dries.
Farone and 23-year Philip Morris employee Jerome Rivers told the FDA the chromatograph checks nicotine levels, as often as once an hour. They said batches with the wrong amounts are reprocessed.
Nicotine levels can be changed by adding tobacco stems with naturally higher nicotine to that mix, Rivers explained.
But Philip Morris' Merrill said the chromatograph simply measures flavoring, never the level of nicotine.
The company never showed visiting FDA scientists the chromatograph so they could settle the issue. ``They didn't ask,'' Merrill said.
Nor would he let The Associated Press see the testing.
``These processes are so consistent that you don't have to'' measure nicotine, Merrill said, adding that Philip Morris always gets reconstituted tobacco with about 20 percent less nicotine than raw tobacco has.
Yet measuring flavors with the chromatograph is vital because the wrong amount could be added, or too much could evaporate during the tobacco's final drying, he said.
``There's nothing magic here,'' Merrill insisted, comparing the process to drying fruit. ``What's left here is fiber and flavor, and the flavors have been concentrated.'' ILLUSTRATION: Associated Press
Philip Morris' Park 500 factory in Chester, Va.
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