Jeffrey Wigand

Encyclopedia : J : JE : JEF : Jeffrey Wigand

Dr. Jeffrey Wigand (born 1942 in New York City, New York) was vice president of research and development at Brown & Williamson in Louisville, Kentucky, and became known as a whistleblower when, on the CBS news program 60 Minutes, he exposed his company's practice of "impact boosting" — intentionally manipulating the effect of nicotine in cigarettes.

Wigand claimed that he was subsequently harassed and received anonymous threats on his life, though this was never substantiated.

He was portrayed in the movie The Insider by Russell Crowe.

Biography

Jeffrey Wigand grew up in the Bronx in a Roman Catholic family. During his childhood his parents moved the family to Pleasant Valley, New York.

After a brief time in the military (including a short assignment in Vietnam), he earned a Master's and Ph.D. from the University at Buffalo. He met his first wife, Linda, in 1970 while attending a Judo class. Shortly after their marriage, Linda developed multiple sclerosis. They would eventually divorce.

Prior to working for Brown and Williamson, Dr. Wigand worked for several health care companies, including Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson. In addition he was employed as general manager and marketing director at Union Carbide in Japan and as a senior vice president at Technicon Instruments. While working at Johnson and Johnson, he met his second wife Lucretia in 1981.

Wigand began work for Brown and Williamson in January of 1989 and on March 24, 1993 he was fired. One and half years later, Wigand began teaching high school which he continues to do until this day.

External links

[jeffreywigand.com] - official site.
http://www.mariebrenner.com/articles/insider/man1.html

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.