By Cristina Johnson
On April 8, we conducted a personal interview with Jeffrey Wigand via telephone call:
After analyzing the answers we received to the questions we asked, we realized that although Dr. Wigand is a primary source, he also has selective perceptions that play into the answers he gave us. Even though this is his story, he frames the story in the way he wants it told. This may be completely truthful, it may not.
The threats against his family came from an unknown source, making it impossible for us or Dr. Wigand to fully understand the reasoning behind the threats. In Roger Ebert's review, he mentions that Dr. Wigand's ex-wife believed he placed the bullet in their mailbox himself. Wigand refutes her claim, but we can only take their word for it.
As a health-care professional, Dr. Wigand has a deep understanding of what the dangers of smoking are, and he has worked very hard in the last 15 years to right the wrongs that he sees in the tobacco industry.
"The most critical part of what I do is make sure young boys
and girls don’t become targeted and manipulated and get addicted," said Wigand. "The average
age (to become addicted) in this country, as well as other developed countries (is) around 11-12, as
young as 7. To me that is just wrong. They take advantage of young people who
haven’t got the cognitive capacity to understand, and have a fundamental belief of
immortality, and at the same time, get hooked. So much of what I say is directed at
children. Much of what I do is to deal with policy makers, lawyers, and others
who have the opportunity to change policy, which protects children. Lastly, I
use litigation to keep the fire burning, 'cause every time we go through litigation,
we wind up continuing to unwrap the ideology of deceit and fraud. 2011, the
tobacco industry was put into the same box, or label, as organized crime. So things have changed: smoke-free island, smoke-free Italy, smoke-free Malta, I mean I’d just go down
the list. And that has and always will continue to grow, and the behavior of
the industry keeps on keeping people alive with this. I mean this whole thing
will just keep on going as long as people understand that they've been tricked. Manipulated for money. These people got rich, basically, I mean I got paid by
people’s illness. I understand that. That was not why I went to the company.
That’s why, you know, I left the pharmaceutical health-care industry, cause I
thought I’d be making a safer cigarette. I mean, that was the intent. Then I
became successful, that was a problem. The problem was that now that you have
something safer, and you’re telling everybody outside, in a sworn statement
that it’s not dangerous, it’s not addictive, there is no links. And now, it’s
starting to be known. And for that I’m grateful to many many many people who
have been a catalyst for it."
Dr. Wigand's dedication to changing state smoking laws is incredible. His personal website, http://www.jeffreywigand.com/, holds most of the information involved with his 60 Minutes interview, The Insider, and his life's work. This website, along with the personal interview conducted with Jeffrey Wigand has led us to know that the information he gave was not self-serving, but that he truly wants to make a change in the tobacco industry in order to save lives. He is extremely passionate about his cause, and has already make a large impact in the tobacco industry.
Through the interview with Dr. Wigand, we have come to see that not every piece of information can be fully fact-checked, no matter how deep we dig. The director of "The Insider" also had to go off whatever information was available to him, allowing for the possibility of facts being mis-represented in the movie. This is understood by an educated viewer however, and the director stayed as close to real events as possible, as related by the actual people involved.
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