Report: tobacco giant paid scientist to spread “disinformation”

<body leftmargin="0" bgcolor="#000060" text="#FFFFFF" link="#FFFF00" vlink="#FF9900"> <b> <p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial" size="5">Report: tobacco giant paid scientist to spread “disinformation”</font></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial" color="#00FF00" size="2">Activity was part of a pattern, report claims</font></p> </b> <p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial" size="1">Posted March 10, 2005<br> Special to  World Science</font> <b> <font size="2" face="Arial"><br> <br> A new report accuses the world’s biggest tobacco company of paying a scientist to spread “disinformation” in a medical journal about the risks of tobacco smoke to babies.<br> <br> The accusations against Philip Morris International are based on once-secret tobacco industry documents, said the report’s authors, who are researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The report is published in the March issue of the scientific journal <i>Pediatrics</i>.<br> <br> The report claims the company paid a scientist to publish an article in 2001 downplaying a known connection between cigarette smoke and sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS. The finding fits into a pattern in which the cigarette industry has paid scientists to play down the health risks of smoking, the report claims.<br> <br> The report also raises questions about the reliability of scientific journals, whose system of carefully reviewing and vetting scientific research before publication is supposed to form one of the backbones of all modern scientific advances. Scientists read the journals and publish new papers based partly on older ones.<br> <br> The article that is the source of the new accusations “has been cited in at least 19 other scientific papers, misleading physicians, their patients and researchers about the risk of secondhand smoke exposure,” according to a press release from the university describing the findings.<br> <br> Most reputable journals require that authors acknowledge whether their research received funding from industry groups or other sources that could influence their findings. The authors of the Philip Morris-funded study correctly did so, the report says; but they failed to mention that the company had helped prepare the manuscript.<br> <br> Many journals need additional safeguards to ensure the independence of the authors publishing in them, suggested Stanton Glantz, director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the university and senior author of the new report.<br> <br> In an email to World Science, Glantz said journals should disclose “any form of involvement of the sponsor (including reviewing drafts) in the study.” The medical journal <i> Lancet</i> does this currently “and I think it is a very good idea,” he added. <br> <br> Furthermore, journals shouldn’t publish research funded by the tobacco-industry at all, Glantz proposed, “given the long well-established record of this sort of behavior” from tobacco companies. “The American Thoracic Society journals, for example, have such a policy,” he wrote.<br> <br> Glantz said in the press release that “undermining people’s understanding of the link between secondhand smoke and SIDS places infants everywhere at increased risk.”<br> <br> The press release continued, saying that Philip Morris “sought and paid an author to write an article for publication in a scientific journal, guided his writing and suggested changes in his conclusions in order to call into question the published studies showing links between secondhand cigarette smoke and SIDS.” <br> <br> The paper appeared in the April 2001 issue of the British journal <i> Paediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology</i>. The publishers did not respond to a request for comment. <br> <br> The article was part of Philip Morris’s “overall scientific strategic plan for addressing secondhand smoke … and childhood health issues,” the press release added, continuing as follows:<br> <br> “The key article acknowledges that smoking during pregnancy can endanger the fetus, but casts doubt on the published scientific finding that secondhand smoke increases the risk of sudden infant death—a finding highlighted in 1992 by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and reinforced by the California Environmental Protection Agency in 1997,” the statement continued.<br> <br> “The tobacco company carried out this disinformation campaign even after the landmark 1998 settlement between all of the major U.S. tobacco manufacturers and 46 states. In the settlement, the tobacco firms agreed to pay the states $206 billion over the first 25 years and continuing amounts after that, and agreed to stop creating controversy about the evidence linking smoking and disease.<br> <br> “The documents show that the tobacco industry hired scientists on at least two different occasions” to prepare articles challenging the secondhand smoke-SIDS connection, the press release added. <br> <br> “The first one failed to attract an influential journal. But then Philip Morris retained a consultant to write a comprehensive review of all known risk factors for SIDS. Philip Morris was to provide the literature review, and the hired scientist was to write the paper. The company’s documents show that Philip Morris budgeted $50,000 to $100,000 for this project. <br> <br> “The company’s papers reveal a concerted effort by Philip Morris to influence the paper’s content and conclusions. When the author completed his first draft, he sent it to the company for review. The original conclusion stated that secondhand smoke increased the risk of SIDS. But a Philip Morris scientific affairs executive questioned this conclusion. <br> <br> “The author accommodated many of Philip Morris’ suggested changes, and when he submitted his final draft to them, he had removed his original conclusion about the effect of secondhand smoke on infants. Instead, he wrote that ‘the majority of the effects of smoking can be explained by prenatal smoking by the mother,’ and that postnatal (infant) secondhand smoke effects were ‘less well established’ than prenatal smoking. …<br> <br> “The article mentions the financial support of Philip Morris, but does not acknowledge that the article was initiated, reviewed and influenced by the tobacco company. Not only does the limited acknowledgement mask the extent of the tobacco company’s influence on the conclusion, but totally hidden from view is the fact that the article was essentially conceived by the tobacco company in the first place. …<br> <br> “The industry continues to use its 50-year old strategies to sow confusion about the real dangers of secondhand smoke and to distort the entire scientific process.”<br> <br> The researchers said Philip Morris conducted the effort to distort the data despite having pledged to stop doing so during the 1998 settlement. In that agreement, tobacco companies agreed to disband the Council for Tobacco Research, a group they had set up to fund scientists working on tobacco-related issues. Government officials accused the group of conducting a public relations campaign to downplay the dangers of smoking, a claim it denied.<br> <br> “The tobacco industry documents were made available as part of the Master Settlement Agreement, in which among other things, tobacco companies pledged to cease their efforts to discredit research on smoking and health,” the press release said. <br> <br> Philip Morris’ own web site acknowledges the SIDS-smoke connection, but the documents show the company continues to orchestrate a behind-the scenes effort to undermine its own health warnings, Glantz asserted. Philip Morris officials did not respond to requests for comment. </font> </p> </b> </body>