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Ira Leviton (talk | contribs) m Deleted 'fortunately' - see Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Words_to_watch#Editorializing. |
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'''Brown & Williamson''' was an [[United States|American]] [[tobacco company]] and subsidiary of the giant [[British American Tobacco]], that produced several popular [[cigarette]] [[brand]]s. It became infamous as the focus of investigations for chemically enhancing the addictiveness of cigarettes. Its former vice-president of research and development, [[Jeffrey Wigand]], was the [[whistleblower]] in an investigation conducted by [[CBS]] news program ''[[60 Minutes]]'', an event that was dramatized in the film ''[[The Insider (film)|The Insider]]''. Wigand claimed that B&W had introduced chemicals such as [[ammonia]] into cigarettes to increase [[nicotine]] delivery and increase [[Substance use disorder|addictiveness]].
Brown & Williamson had its headquarters in [[Louisville, Kentucky]], until July 30, 2004, when the U.S. operations of Brown & Williamson merged with [[R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company|R.J. Reynolds]], creating a new publicly traded parent company, [[Reynolds American Inc.]] Some of its brands had been sold earlier in 1996 to the [[Great Britain|British]] tobacco company [[Imperial Tobacco]] and [[British American Tobacco]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.hoovers.com/company-information/cs/company-profile.Commonwealth_Brands_Inc.4b70dc160c7266e1.html|title=Commonwealth Brands, Inc. Company Information|publisher=[[Hoover's]]|accessdate=2014-10-30}}</ref>
B&W was also involved in genetically modifying tobacco (notably the controversial [[Y1 (tobacco)|Y1]] strain).<ref>http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/280/13/1173 JAMA (1998)280:1173-1181</ref>
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