Tobacco Documents Online

OlJ' d 9-Z_ 33 1. Appendix Coding Definitions for Article Content Types of a_Tticles - coded as original. reviey~,.or commentarv. We determined whether or not each article presented primary original research and data or was a review of previous firi&ngs. Meta-analyses which contained a detailed description of data selection and new calcuIations of relative risks were counted as original articles, rather than reviews. For the symposia cc:u::1g3, We CdtCgVlzLeti discussTons'alld in7oduc"uGYis as cCiuliZieistarlea. T hese commentaries are described in the results, but were not included in the comparison of descriptive characteristics between symposia and medical / scientific journal articles. }--~. O C W We also determined whether or not each article contained a methods section. Even the most ~ minimal description of an article's methodology counted as a methods section. For example,' Y '"I'he first survey was only a pilot project to test the methodology and to get an overview about the actual situation. Therefore the sample of flats was only small and selected by accident. ... Comments to the questionnaire and the working schedule were agreed before and almost the same during both surveys." (Pirsel, L "A Czechoslovak survey about ventilation habits in dwellings" Present and Future of Indoor Air Quality 321-328). Agreement of articlec with the tobacco industrv pocition that ETS is not ha_rm uended as agreed, disagmed. or neutral. Each article was read to determine if the paper supported the tobacco industry's position.that "there is no persuasive evidence that cigarette smoke in the air, or ETS, poses any significant risk to the health of nonsmokers." (9). The position of the tobacco industry on the health effects of ETS has been summarized in a 1986 Tobacco Institute document as follows: (9): - - •"exposure to ETS has not been shown to cause lung cancer in nonsmokers," Bero, LA• Galbraith, A and Rennie, D. Appendix: CQding definitions for ar~icle content - Sponsored symposia on environmental tobacco smoke. JAMA 271(Supp1 :1-4, 1994. (Please see Re~erence 10001).

(d •"[ETS] has not been shown to impair the respiratory or cardiovascular health of nonsmoking adults or children, or to exacerbate preexisting disease in these groups," •"evidence relating ETS to health effects is scanty, contradictory and often fundameniallyy flawed," "no marker has yet been found for chronic rather than very recent [ETS] exposures," 'L . •"the existence of so many co- and confounding variables will, of course, continue to ,. present formidable obstacles to the study of the health effects, if any, of ETS." If an article agreed with at least one of the five points listed above, we coded the article as agreeing with the tobacco industry's position on ETS (i.e., an article concluded that exposure to wood smoke, but not ETS, was associated with lung cancer in nonsmokers). If an ardcle's conclusion was contrary to any of the five points presented above, we coded the article as not .y agreeing with the tobacco industry's position (i.e., an article concluded that exposure to ETS was associated with wheezing in children). If an article made no conclusions regarding the tobacco, industry's position, we coded the article as neutral regarding the industry's position on ErS (i.e., an article reported a gas chromatography method for measuring cotinine in urine, but did not comment on the merits of the method compared to other ways of assessing ETS exposure). If an article made some conclusions that supported the tobacco industry's position and some that did not, the article was coded as neutral (i.e., an article reported that hydroxyproline was a valid and reliable marker for ETS, but then claimed that studies which did not use hydroxvproline as a marker should not be considered valid). Tonics of articles - coded as ETS. exposLr_e- _m.ethods, confounctr..rs_ or nthr..r, To determine whether or not the articles represented balanced and comprehensive coverage of data on the health effects of ETS, we grouped the articles by scientifc topic into one of five mutually exclusive categories: 1) health effects of ETS (i.e., epidemiologic or animal studies on the effecx of ETS on lung cancer, pulmonary function in adults, cardiovascular effects, and child health; in

3. vitro studies of ETS carcinogenicity), 2) exposure to ETS (i.e., measured amount of exposure to ETS in different settings, critiques of methods for*measuring exposure, chemical composition of ETS), 3) critiques of methods (i.e., criticisms of ineta-analysis, discussions of misclassification, discussions of bias and pitfalls of epidemiological studies), 4) confound.ers.(i.e., papers that studied factors other than ETS that could contribute to lung cancer, candiae diseast, or respiratory effects in children (i.e., diet, lifestyle, bird ownership, occupational exposures, radon), 5) other (i.e., papers on government procedures for risk assessment, basic science studies on the mechanism of cancer, papers on annoyance and irritation of ETS, but not health effects). Sources of funding for articles - coded as tobacco industry. government, other. multiple. or not disclosed. For each article, we recorded the funding source(s) for the research presented to test the hypothesis that symposia contain a greater proportion of tobacco-industry-funded research than journal articles. The funding source(s) were coded only if they were acknowledged on the article. If an articla had rnultiple funding sources, each was co&d,. A-paper was classified ns . funded by the tobacco industry if it stated that it that the research was supported by a tobacco company, or cigarette manufacturer, the Tobacco Institute, the Smokeless Tobacco Council, the Center for Indoor Air Research, or other tobacco-industry sponsored groups (i.e., the Australian Tobacco Council). The paper was coded as having a government funding source if the work was supported by local, state, or national United States or foreign governments. Additional funding sources were coded as other. Other sources of funding included foundations (e.g., Housing Research and Advancement Foundation of Japan), societies (e.g., The Hong Kong Anti-Cancer Society), universities / colleges (e.g., The Kentucky Tobacco and Health Resea,rch Institute of the University of Kentucky) and non-tobacco companies (e.g., Cotton, Inc.) Affiliations of authors of articles - coded as ' dus -affiliated or not industry-affiliated. We determined whether or not there were any known affiliations between the authors of the articles and the tobacco industry. An affiliation as defined in this study means that the reviewer had a

financial or other interest in the tobacco industry. An affiliation does not mean that the author was biased or supported the position of the tobacco industry that ETS is not harmful to health. An author was characterized as affiIiated if he or she 1) disclosed in the article that he or she was funded by the tobacco industry, 2) received grant funding from the tobacco industry as stated in other publications, 3) testified as an expert witness in support of the tobacco industry during legal proceedings, 4) was an employee of the tobacco industry or 5) was on the Board of Directors of a tobacco company or the Tobacco Institute. Sources used to determine,tobacco . industry affiliations were 1) the symposia themselves, 2) curriculum vitac of the authors, 3) transcripts of legal proceedings, and 4) the annual reports of tobacco industry groups listing investigators they have funded.