TOBACCO COMPANY SET UP NETWORK OF SYMPATHETIC SCIENTISTS

The US tobacco giant Philip Morris set up a network of scientists
throughout Europe who were paid to cast doubt on the risks of passive
smoking and highlight other possible causes of respiratory problems,
according to confidential documents from the company's law firm released on
the internet.

The company's consultants included "an editor" of the Lancet, an adviser to
a Commons select committee, and members of working groups of the
International Agency for Research in Cancer, claims a memo from the US
lawyers Covington and Burling.

Clues in the documents point to the Lancet contact as the late Petr
Skrabanek, who was not an editor but a regular contributor who wrote
editorials among other articles. Robin Fox, the Lancet's editor from 1990
to 1995, said it was "very likely" that Dr Skrabanek, who was an associate
professor of community health at Trinity College, Dublin, was the scientist
referred to in the memo.

Under the heading "Lancet" the memo says: "One of our consultants is an
editor of this very influential British medical journal, and is continuing
to publish numerous reviews, editorials, and comments on environmental
tobacco smoke and other issues." Dr Fox said Dr Skrabanek did not write
editorials on smoking.

The select committee adviser is believed to be the late Professor Roger
Perry, an environmental scientist from Imperial College, London, and an
expert on traffic pollution, who advised the environment committee.

Clive Bates, director of the antismoking pressure group ASH (Action on
Smoking and Health), said: "Philip Morris's attempt to infiltrate science
is a scandal. The documents clearly show the industry inventing and
orchestrating controversies by buying up scientists and creating
influential outlets for tainted science."

He said ASH sympathised with difficulties faced by institutions and
journals like the Lancet. "No matter how strict you are about conflicts of
interest, there is not much you can do if scientists conceal who they are
paid by."

The memo from the London office of the US law firm Covington and Burling
claims that Philip Morris consultants set up a learned society, Indoor Air
International--complete with scientific journal.

The document is one of 39 000 which the industry was forced to disclose in
a lawsuit brought by the state of Minnesota and two healthcare companies
which was recently settled. The fact that the project was coordinated by
lawyers meant the company could claim legal privilege for any documentation
and prevent disclosure in later litigation. But the Minnesota court held
that there was prima facie evidence of fraud, which overrides the
privilege.

The documents reveal a global campaign to influence opinion on passive
smoking in the US, Europe, Australia, the Far East, and central and South
America through the secret recruitment of scientists. Covington and Burling
set up its London law office in 1988 to coordinate the European arm, code
named "Project Whitecoat."

The project strategy was outlined to British tobacco companies at a meeting
in London in February 1988, attended by representatives of BAT, Imperial,
and Gallaher. A report on the meeting written by a BAT representative
includes a list of 18 scientists, most at British universities, who were
suggested as possible consultants. A year later the learned society Indoor
Air International (now the International Society of the Built Environment)
was set up.

Five of the seven founders were on the list, and others on the list were on
the editorial board of the journal. Dr John Hoskins, current editor of the
society's journal, Indoor and Built Environment, said: "I understand the
tobacco industry did not put any money into the society nor into the
journal. They may well have bought some free lunches. Three of the people
who set it up are dead. Nowadays we publish anything from the medical to
the purely engineering and anything about tobacco has to go through extra
hurdles."

Scientists were "not paid unless and until they actually perform work,"
according to the Covington and Burling memo. They were "asked to cover all
substantial scientific conferences where they can usefully influence
scientific and public opinion."

Text of Philip Morris memo can be found at
http://www.bmj.com/misc/philipmemo.shtml

The tobacco documents can be found at http://www.ash.org.uk

Checked-by: jwjohnson@netmagic.net (Joel W. Johnson)