TOBACCO FIRM HAD SECRET ARMY OF SCIENTISTS IN SMOKE BATTLE

THE tobacco company Philip Morris recruited a covert army of scientists to
contribute to The Lancet and other journals to counter bad publicity about
passive smoking, it was claimed last night. A company "consultant" also
advised a a Commons select committee on pollution.

The infiltration exercise, codenamed "Project Whitecoat", is described in a
1990 memorandum from an American law firm acting for the company, which has
released some 39,000 papers as part of a Minnesota lawsuit.

The documents, published on the Internet by an American congressional
committee chairman, also claim that the company established its own
"learned society" in Geneva which published papers suggesting that factors
other than tobacco smoke might be behind lung disease.

Under the heading "Lancet", the memo says that "one of our consultants is
an editor of this very influential British medical journal and is
continuing to publish numerous reviews, editorials and commitments on
environmental tobacco smoke". The document does not name the person.

Richard Horton, the present Editor, did not work for the journal at the
time and says that he has no knowledge of any involvement. His deputy,
David Sharpe, also said that neither he nor the other two editors working
for The Lancet in 1990 had any contacts with Philip Morris or the law firm,
Covington and Burling.

In a commentary to be published in this week's issue, Mr Horton says that
the charge made against the journal is a serious one, and surprising since
The Lancet's coverage of smoking issues at the time emphasised the adverse
effects, including those of passive smoking.

In the memo, consultants are defined as people "who are not paid unless
they actually perform work". One document names the late Dr Roger Perry, an
environmental scientist at Imperial College, London, as such a consultant.
He served as an adviser to the Commons Environment Select Committee, which
published a report on indoor pollution in 1991, but he is said to have told
members that he had done work for the tobacco industry.

Another of the papers shows that representatives of Philip Morris and other
tobacco companies met in London in 1988 to discuss how to counter bad
publicity about passive smoking. One strategy suggested was to recruit
scientists without obvious connections to the industry to write articles
and attend conferences.

Another was to establish Indoor Air International, described by the law
firm as "the world's only learned society addressing questions of indoor
air quality".

Dr Helmut Gaish, who was Director of Science at Philip Morris Europe at the
time, wrote: "No other resource gives the industry any similar access to
the scientific community, government, and those who make decisions about
indoor air quality issues and standards."

Clive Bates, the director of ASH (Action on Smoking and Health) said last
night: "Philip Morris's claimed infiltration of 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."

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski