… These days, tobacco companies no longer try to claim that cigarettes aren’t harmful — in fact, in an ironic reversal, a favorite legal defense in current cases is the argument that nearly everyone was aware of the dangers, even back in the 1950s. To shore up this controversial claim, known as the “common knowledge” defense, tobacco companies often enlist academics as expert witnesses. …
And many of the industry’s witnesses lean heavily on the same Gallup poll from 1954 that indicates 90% of Americans had heard smoking could cause lung cancer. But in 1998, Gallup told the tobacco industry to stop using this polling out of context. CONT.
Blake Farmer, NPR News