CONGRESSIONAL PANEL RELEASES DOCUMENTS LINKING TOBACCO COMPANIES AND
SCIENTISTS

Many Of The Studies Were Not Peer Reviewed And Were Designed To Understate
The Dangers Of Smoking

WASHINGTON - A House of Representatives committee last month released
thousands of pages of subpoenaed documents that shed new light on a
long-running campaign by the tobacco industry to quietly influence -- and
sometimes suppress -- scientific research on the health-related effects of
tobacco.

That tobacco companies sponsored academic research is not a surprise; the
industry has long acknowledged using separately incorporated groups to
finance studies that were peer reviewed and, in many cases, scientifically
sound.

The new documents, however, provide new evidence about what has been
revealed only recently: that the tobacco companies, through their lawyers,
funneled money to sponsor research that was not peer reviewed and that was
designed, in many cases, to understate the dangers of smoking.

The fact that the companies' lawyers approved the research enabled the
lawyers to shield the study results from public view, under the legal
principle of attorney-client privilege. That meant that the lawyers could,
if they chose, insure that any unfavorable results never saw the light of
day. The approach also insured that scientists themselves could be kept
from testifying against the industry in court if their research was
critical of tobacco.

Representative Thomas J. Bliley, the Virginia Republican who heads the
House Commerce Committee, subpoenaed the documents in November from four
tobacco companies that are defendants in a lawsuit brought by state
officials in Minnesota. Mr. Bliley made the papers public after the judge
hearing the Minnesota case, Kenneth J. Fitzpatrick, ruled that they were
not protected by attorney-client privilege, because they contained evidence
of crime and fraud.

The top Democrat on the Commerce Committee, Representative John D. Dingell
of Michigan, said in a statement that the papers reveal a "massive funding
of 'helpful' researchers," a process in which, at the direction of their
lawyers, the tobacco companies "appeared to fund the entire livelihood of
dozens of researchers."

A preliminary review of the documents suggests that some scientists and
institutions indeed received significant sums from the "special projects"
funds overseen by the companies' lawyers.

A summary of the money spent from those funds in one year, 1989, shows at
least $1.6-million flowing to about 15 projects. One of the recipients,
Washington University, received $300,000 that year, and as much as $500,000
in other years, to support a cancer-immunology laboratory at its medical
center.

Paul E. Lacy, a professor emeritus of pathology who helped coordinate the
Washington project, said the lab focused on basic research that had
"nothing at all to do with smoking." He said the tobacco companies never
pressured the university or tried to shape its work in any way.

"I think they were enthralled with the research that was being done, though
that may sound corny to you," said Dr. Lacy.

Another beneficiary of the tobacco largesse was Gary L. Huber, who received
funds from the industry for 25 years of work at Harvard University, the
University of Kentucky, and the University of Texas Health Center at Tyler.

In a January 1989 letter released by the House panel, a lawyer for Shook,
Hardy, & Bacon, the Kansas City, Mo., firm that coordinated the
special-projects fund, proposed that it cover as much as half of Dr.
Huber's salary to free him to do a massive review of existing studies on
tobacco.

"Purchase of Dr. Huber's time in this manner will enable him to spend more
time selecting and analyzing the most significant scientific literature for
our use," the letter said. It added that his work would prove "especially
useful" in developing "state-of-knowledge arguments," presumably for use in
liability trials.

Dr. Huber and officials of the Texas health center said they were wary of
accepting money from the tobacco companies and were perplexed about the
lawyers' role. But they secured promises that "we were going to publish our
information freely and openly," said Richard Kronenberg, executive
associate director for clinical affairs at the health center.

Although some of Dr. Huber's work questioned the dangers of tobacco, both
he and Dr. Kronenberg said that over the years he was involved with the
tobacco companies, they had seen no evidence that the companies ever tried
to influence their work or suppress negative reports.

But last year, lawyers for states seeking to sue the tobacco companies
showed Dr. Huber internal tobacco-company documents that convinced him he
had been duped. One document said the companies had sponsored his work at
Harvard as a way of improving "public relations, political relations,
position for litigation, etc." Dr. Huber said the documents also made clear
to him that the tobacco industry had, by withholding damaging information
about its products, "delayed scientific progress by 10 to 15 years."

He decided to testify against the tobacco companies in litigation brought
by state officials in Texas. The companies have sought to suppress his
testimony, citing the fact that the work he did was covered by
attorney-client privilege. A judge will rule on that question soon.

Dr. Kronenberg said that the Texas center would never enter into such an
arrangement today, and no longer accepts tobacco money. "It gets to the
heart of who should support research, and what kinds of research money
should an academic institution take," he said. "Do you take from the
pharmaceutical industry but not tobacco? At this point, I'd say Yes,
because the tobacco industry has shown itself to be corrupt from the
standpoint of manipulating academic institutions and researchers."

Researchers and experts on scientific ethics say deciding whether to accept
tobacco money is one thing; much harder, they say, is resolving issues
raised by Mr. Dingell in a letter he wrote to accompany the recently
published tobacco documents: Do researchers tell their institutions enough
about the "nature of their financial support?" Do universities exert enough
oversight over the nature of the research their scientists conduct?

Such questions are crucial at a time of dwindling federal support for
research, said Marcel C. La Follette, a professor of international
science-and-technology policy at George Washington University. "We can't
afford" to stop accepting private research money, she said, "but it's very
important for universities to attack this issue of how funding can be
accepted, how researchers' independence and integrity can be protected
within the institution."

More disclosure by researchers to their institutions, and more oversight of
researchers by the institutions, will help, said Paul J. Friedman, a
professor of radiology at the University of California at San Diego. "But
the protections won't come easily, because when you close one loophole,
somebody finds another.

"To paraphrase, the price of honest research is eternal vigilance."

Copyright (c) 1998 by The Chronicle of Higher Education