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• Vermont's lawsuit against R.J. Reynolds goes to judge 

R.J. Reynolds Inc. promoted its Eclipse cigarette as safer than other brands without the science to back up the claim as part of a strategy to keep people hooked on smoking, a lawyer for the state said Wednesday.

"Reynolds believed that Eclipse, if successful, would reduce the number of eventual quitters," attorney Barney Brannen told Chittenden Superior Court Judge Dennis Pearson. Brannen said there was no proof that Eclipse was safer than other cigarettes.

Robert Shaughnessy, a lawyer representing R.J. Reynolds, said the company had not misled anyone about its claims about Eclipse, a cigarette the firm came up with a decade ago that warms rather than burns its tobacco component.

"The only claim we made about the Eclipse product is that it has less inherent risk from its own use than other products in the same class," Shaughnessy said.

The two lawyers' remarks came during closing arguments in a consumer fraud action filed by the Vermont Attorney General's Office seeking to have Pearson issue a court injunction to stop the R.J. Reynolds' advertising campaign for Eclipse.

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This case could have a national impact, not only for Eclipse, but because it could put meat on the bones in terms of what the tobacco industry can and cannot say about its so-called reduced risk products.
Vermont Attorney General William Sorrell, on VT's lawsuit against RJR for its health-related Eclipse ads.