By Attila Honey

Every one knows that cigarettes eventually kill you. I don’t smoke but if I could get away with it, I would still be smoking because I loved every drag I took! I smoked 3 1/2 packs a day until it dawned on me that I was digging my own grave. I also had a friend who passed away from lung cancer and that impacted greatly. But the “Quit Today” epiphany had to come from me because all the “do gooder” speeches in the world didn’t help. I quit cold turkey and by the third day, every image I saw took the form of a cigarette and I wanted to smoke it…even tree stumps! That was many years ago but once I lived through the ordeal of nicotine withdrawal, I never smoked again! The more that I dig beneath the surface, the more information keeps popping up regarding Big Tobacco that the public needs to be made aware of.

In October 2006, Dr. Claudia Henschke of Weill Cornell Medical College jolted the cancer world with a study saying that 80% of lung cancer deaths could be prevented through widespread use of CT scans.Of course the small print at the end of the study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, noted that it had been financed in part by a little-known charity called the Foundation for Lung Cancer: Early Detection, Prevention & Treatment. This foundation was given 4 grants from the Vector group, the cigarette manufacturer’s parent company, from 2000 – 2003. A review of tax records by the New York Times shows that the foundation was underwritten almost entirely by $3.6M in grants from the parent company of the Liggett Group, maker of Liggett Select, Eve, Grand Prix, Quest and Pyramid cigarette brands. Many universities no longer accept grants from Big Tobacco because of the influence that industry can have over research outcomes – even donations that are made at arm’s length. This has led nearly all medical journals and associations to demand that researchers accurately disclose financing sources.

So back to our story: In December, 2000, Vector issued a press release saying that it intended giving a sizable donation to Weill Cornell Medical College to subsidize Dr. Henschke research on lung cancer. Articles in Business Week and USA Today mentioned the gift. But no mention was made of the foundation, begun so hastily that its 2000 tax return stated, “not yet organized.” But a Vector spokesman confirmed that the company had donated $3.6 million to the foundation over three years. Prominent cancer researchers and journal editors, told of the foundation by The New York Times, said they were stunned to learn of Dr. Henschke’s association with Liggett. Cigarette makers are so reviled among cancer advocates and researchers that any association with that industry can taint researchers and bar their work from being published. “If you’re using blood money, you need to tell people you’re using blood money,” said Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer for the American Cancer society who, by the way, also gave Dr. Henschke more than $100,000 in grants from 2004 – 2007. According to Dr. Brawley, this money would not have been provided had The American Cancer Society known of the Big Tobacco grants that she was also receiving.So there is the usual back and forth but the bottom line is this. Big Tobacco will stop at nothing, even using legitimate research and public service announcements, to woo potential smokers to their fold. In this case, Big Tobacco used a clandestine foundation to support research on lung cancer because they wanted to show the public that lung cancer isn’t so bad as everybody thinks because screening can save people’s lives.

In all fairness, it might be worth noting that Dr.Henschke’s work has been highly respected in her area of expertise – but the disclosure that her research was in part underwritten by grants from Big Tobacco will undercut those efforts because now her research is tainted.

Corporate financing can have subtle effects on research that lead to unconscious bias. Studies have shown that sponsored research tends to reach conclusions that favor the sponsor, which is why disclosure is encouraged. Big Tobacco has a history of underwriting research through independent sounding foundations to make cigarettes seem less dangerous.

Well, as my great friend Em always said, “Be Wise as a Serpent and Gentle as a Dove”. Some of the brightest people I’ve ever known have no common sense. Seems to me that had someone as brilliant as Dr. Henschke had used a little common sense – all this could have been avoided. This is the problem with the current administration – too many academics “Czars” and only a small percentage who have common sense and hands on experience in the work place.