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Excerpts from: How the tobacco industry responded to an influential study of the health effects of secondhand smoke

By Mi-Kyung Hong, public administration analyst, and Professor Lisa A Bero. British Medical Journal 2002;325:1413-1416
[12/14/02]
 
The tobacco industry generated a study, the "Japanese spousal study," in an attempt to refute the findings of a 1981 cohort study showing an association between secondhand exposure to tobacco smoke and lung cancer

Internal tobacco industry documents describe how the tobacco industry considered multiple strategies to conceal its involvement in the Japanese spousal study

The tobacco industry considered funding the study through the Center for Indoor Air Research, a research organisation supported by the tobacco industry, in order to hide industry involvement

The parties involved in conducting the study included a tobacco industry scientist, a tobacco industry consultant, an industry law firm, and two Japanese investigators. The consultant was the sole author of the final publication . . .
The tobacco companies decided to fund the study themselves. Although there was unanimous agreement from companies such as Brown and Williamson and British American Tobacco that the study should be conducted, these companies stated that they could not "pay their share."21 After extensive deliberations, Philip Morris agreed to fund the study, with additional support from RJ Reynolds, British American Tobacco, Reemtsma, Imperial Tobacco, and Rothmans. . .

The parties involved in the Japanese spousal study included a tobacco industry scientist (Chris Proctor), a tobacco industry consultant (Peter N Lee, paid $5000 in consultation fees),24 and an industry law firm (Covington and Burling, paid $30 000 for "project management"). . .

The acknowledgement of financial support from tobacco companies in the final publication of the Japanese spousal study shows how financial disclosure is an imperfect indicator of a sponsor's involvement in the research. The published disclosure that the author received "financial support from several companies of the tobacco industry"40 does not fully describe the industry's involvement in the study.