Annex 1
New Scientist
16 May 1998
UNDERCOVER OPERATION
A Tobacco Industry Memo Describes a Network of
Influential Moles
BODY
The American tobacco giant Philip Morris secretly
recruited influential people to help allay fears about the health
risks from passive smoking, according to a memo dating from 1990.
Among those claimed to be acting as consultants were an adviser
to a British parliamentary committee and "an editor"
of "The Lancet".
The memo is one of 39,000 tobacco industry documents
central to a lawsuit by the state of Minnesota, which aimed to
recover from the tobacco industry the costs of treating illness
caused by smoking. The case was settled last week. Philip Morris's
index of the documents it handed over says the memo came from
the London offices of its lawyers Covington and Burling.
Under the heading "Lancet" the document
says: "One of our consultants is an editor of this very influential
British medical journal, an is continuing to publish numerous
reviews, editorials and comments on ETS (environmental tobacco
smoke) and other issues."
Elsewhere, the document says that other consultants
include an "adviser to a particularly relevant House of Commons
select committee" and several "members of the working
groups of the International Agency for Research on Cancer".
The IARC is the UN agency in Lyon that rates the cancer risks
of pollutants, foods and chemicals. The document defines consultants
as people who "are not paid unless and until they actually
perform work".
The claim about "The Lancet", which
has been highly critical of the tobacco industry, will amaze and
shock medical researchers. "The documents reveal a cynical
attempt by Philip Morris to infiltrate some of the most respected
institutions in science," says Clive Bates, director of Action
on Smoking and Health in London.
"The Lancet" 's current editor, Richard
Horton, who did not work for the journal when the memo was written,
told "New Scientist": "I have spoken to senior
editors who worked at "The Lancet" in March 1990 and
who then had responsibility for the journal's content. They have
absolutely no knowledge of Covington and Burling's European Consultancy
Programme . . . A review of "The Lancet" 's coverage
of smoking in 1989 and 1990 shows that all published research
articles, editorials and reviews emphasised the adverse effects
of smoking, including environmental tobacco smoke."
Paolo Boffetta, head of cancer epidemiology
at the IARC, says the agency has not knowingly worked with Philip
Morris consultants. "But we don't know everybody connected
to the industry," he says.
The memo does not name any of the consultants.
Indeed, it stresses the "continuing need for care and discretion
in the groups' activities to protect their usefulness". Despite
repeated requests, neither Philip Morris nor Covington and Burling
supplied a spokesperson for comment.
However, the reference to a House of Commons
committee would appear to refer to its Environment Committee,
which published a report on indoor pollution in 1991. One of its
advisers was the late Roger Perry, an environmental scientist
at Imperial College, London. Other documents among the 39,000
state that Perry was paid by Philip Morris to carry out research.
Frank Cranmer, clerk to the committee at that
time, says that its members knew Perry had done research for the
tobacco industry. He cannot recall Perry mentioning that he had
any deeper relationship with Philip Morris.
15 May 1998
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