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Jeffrey Wigand, PhD
Keynote Fee : Call For Quote Travels From: MI |
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Halting Addiction: Smoking and HealthSpeaker Information
The 1990's marked an important turning point in the United States for public health and the aggressive business tactics of one of the country's most powerful and pervasive industries: big tobacco. At the forefront of these changes was Dr. Jeffrey Wigand, who exposed corporate deceit and wrongdoing in spite of threats to his career and the personal lives of those around him.
Wigand joined the upper echelon of the tobacco industry in the late 1980's, hoping to create a safer cigarette for smokers around the world. Years later, he is emerging from his experience a hero - not because he created a safer product, but because, along the way, he just happened to become the highest-ranking executive to go public with what he knew in the history of the tobacco industry.
Throughout his harrowing ordeal, however, Wigand was mostly vilified a liar; the hero part has only come lately. To Vanity Fair magazine, he was "The Man Who Knew Too Much." Disney, whose movie about his travails was released in November 1999, dubbed him "The Insider." His odyssey from tobacco top-brass turncoat has made him the subject of documentaries and the object of death threats. Wigand's revelations triggered one of the most inglorious moments in the history of "60 Minutes," when CBS initially shelved an interview with him, fearing a lawsuit from his former employer, Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation.
Because of his public disclosures about the industry's efforts to minimize the health and safety issue of tobacco use, Wigand himself was sued by Brown & Williamson, a Louisville-based organization which is owned by BAT Industries, Plc, the world's second-largest tobacco concern. The lawsuit was dismissed as a condition of the June 20, 1997, historic settlement between the Attorneys General of 40 States and the tobacco industry.
A native New Yorker, Wigand earned academic degrees with distinction from the University of Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, and more recently obtained a Masters Degree in Secondary Education (MAT) from the University of Louisville. He taught Japanese and science, including biology, chemistry and physical sciences, at duPont Manual High School, a national school of academic excellence, in Louisville, Kentucky, for three years. He received national recognition for his teaching skills when he was awarded the Sallie Mae "First Class Teacher of the Year" Award in 1996. He was one of 51 teachers recognized nationwide.
Out side of the classroom, Wigand has held senior management positions with a number of leading health care companies, including Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer, and served as Vice President for Research and Development for Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation from December 1988 to March 1993. After his separation from Brown & Williamson, Wigand cooperated with governmental agencies investigating the tobacco industry. Dr. Kessler, the former Commissioner of the FDA, has acknowledged that Wigand's assistance was central to the FDA's investigation into the role and effect of nicotine in tobacco products.
Wigand has received numerous awards and public recognition for his action in revealing tobacco company research and marketing practices. He continues his efforts to reduce teen tobacco use through Smoke-Free Kids, Inc., a non-profit organization he formed.