PHILIP MORRIS SHAREHOLDERS WILL VOTE ON PETA RESOLUTION TO END ANIMAL TESTS
Message and Matchbooks Spark Debate at Annual Meeting

For Immediate Release: April 25, 2001

Contact: Jay Kelly 757-622-7382

Richmond, Va. - As Philip Morris shareholders prepare to vote on a resolution introduced by PETA to stop the tobacco giant's bad habit of continuing to test its products by forcing animals to inhale, they will receive matchbooks that read, "Don't get burned by Philip Morris. They're using your money to hurt animals. Snuff out smoking experiments on animals."

Date: Thursday, April 26
Time: 8 to 9 a.m.
Place: Philip Morris Manufacturing Center,
3601 Commerce Rd.

While everyone knows that smoking leads to lung cancer, emphysema, and a host of other diseases, few people realize that the tobacco industry still poisons and kills thousands of animals every year in experiments that the company hopes will confound human experience. Experimenters cut holes in beagles' throats and have strapped facemasks to rats, apes, and monkeys, forcing them to breathe concentrated cigarette smoke for up to a year. All this, despite the fact that knowledge of the dangers of smoking has come solely from human clinical and epidemiological studies and autopsies of human victims of lung and heart disease.

If the resolution is accepted by shareholders, Philip Morris will no longer sponsor or fund smoking-related research using live animals, will direct any funds contributed to the Council for Tobacco Research or other research organizations to non-animal research, and will notify shareholders of the status of the implementation of the policy by September 1, 2001.

"Animals don't smoke. Why should they have to suffer just because some humans want to poison themselves?" says PETA campaign coordinator Jay Kelly. "Animals don't deserve to go up in smoke, so we're out to light a fire under Philip Morris until they're free."

Natural American Spirit cigarette company confirmed last week that it does not fund any animal tests and does not belong to any trade organizations that may fund animal experiments.