Tobacco Documents Online

T May 17,1998 SUNDAY Center tied to tobacco industry Indoor Air Research funding is questioned By ScoTT $FiANE 6UN ISTAFF 09E9~'.~Z When Jobns Hopkins re- ~ searcher Dr. Genevieve = Matanoski published a study in ~ 1995 suggesting that lung cancer i cases attributed to secondhand smoke might actually result from diet or other factors, her paper acknowledged support from the Center for Indoor Air Research. What she did not say was that the center, operated from mod- est offices near Baltimore-Wash- ington International Airport, gets its money from the nation's ' four largest- cigarette makers. ' More than 90 percent of the ap- I proximateiy $5 million the center I gives out each year comes direct- ' ly from the tobacco Industry. Tobacco industry documents and interviews suggest that the ' center Is far from being an "inde- ' pendent, non-profit organiza- tion," as it is described in one brochure. I 1`, ^1`. 1~-1, iio 'C„o,,o (',rr''iT^4Pr, rr Re' . Baltimore, Maryla FRoMT P6G £

THE NATION Center's research study finding is questioned (5moking, from Page 1A] center was created by industry lawyers and the Tobacco Institute in 1988 to blunt the attack of health advocates as evidence mounted that secondhand smoke causes lung cancer, heart disease and respiratory illness. Ali its grants must be approved by a board of directors made up of two top research executives from each ofthe four tobacco companies. ."Their true purpose was to gen- erate disinformation," says Rich- ard Daynard, a Boston law profes- sor and chairman of the Tobacco Products Liability Project. Dr. Michele Bloch, a Maryland physician and co-author of the American Public Health Associa- tion's policy urging health institu- tions not to accept money from cigarette makers, said the center's name is misleading. "The tobacco industry is corrupting science," she said. "Very few people know this is tobacco money." Not so, say the center's staff and supporters, including Matan- oski, a prominent epidemiologist at Hopkins' School of Public Health who has herself been awarded $2.3 million by the center since 1993 and serves on its scien- tittc advisory board. In effect, they z say that whatever purpose ciga- rette makers may have had in cre- ating the center, they have been vigilant in guarding against indus- try bias. "If they're willing to f1md me, I take the money," said Matanoski, a member and former chairwom- an of the Environmental Protec- tion Agency's science advisory board. "If the scientist is honest, [tobacco industry funding] can be a big boost for research. CIAR is working in an area where there's very little money for research." Max Eisenberg, 55, a chemist and former Maryland assistant secretary of environment, has served as executive director of the center since its creation. "I've tried my hardest to maintain the center as a premier organization that gets the best studies done by the best people," he says. Debate has raged among public health specialists for years over whether scientists should accept tobacco industry money for re- search. Like the American Public Health Association, the American Medical Association advises health researchers not to take to- bacco money and scientific jour- nals not to publish tobacco-sup- ported papers. Few universities appear to have adopted such policies, partly out of concern for academic freedom. The Johns Hopkins University di- vested itself of tobacco stocks in 1991, declaring, "The university cannot teach that smoking is the most preventable cause of death, and at the same time proSt from investing in tobacco-related stocks." But it has never banned tobacco industry research grants, and Hopkins' school of public health has been awarded $5.4 mi1- AND&EF.CHIIN6c8VN8TAFF Directora Max Eisenberg, executive director of the Center for Indoor Air Research, is a chemist and former assistant secretary o f the Maryland Department of the Environment. lion from the indoor air center. "The fact that the money comes from tobacco companies does make me uncomfortable," said Dr. Alfred Sommer, the school's dean. "Would I rather that the money came from NIH [the federal National Institutes of• Health]? Yes. But NIH isn't sup- portingthis kind of research." 'Sophisticated industry' Sommer said that "as long as there's no meddling with results, I don't see a problem." But he added: "We've learned this is a very sophisticated industry. ... Have they outfoxed us here? Hav- ing learned what we've now learned, we'll go back and review these issues." Most controversy to date has focused on the Council for Tobac- co Research, created in 1954 with an industry pledge to sponsor re- search on the emerging links be- tween smoking and disease. In- stead, industry documents show, the council was used to maintain the appearance of corporate re- sponsibility while tobacco compa- nies hid what they knew about smoking hazards. The battle over the Council for Tobacco Research culminated this month as New York's attorney general went to court to try to strip the tax-exempt status of the council and the Tobacco Institute, the industry's lobbying and public

relations arm, both incorporated in New York. The petition charged ' that the two groups have "acted in a persistently fraudulent and ille- I gai manner." Last week, industry lawyers ne- g gotiating an end to Minnesota's tobacco lawsuit agreed to disband the Council for Tobacco Research as a condition of settlement. The Center for Indoor Air Re- search, which might be described as the council's younger brother, has largely avoided public atten- tion. Top scientists have contin- ued to serve on its scientific advi-. sory board. Its environmentally friendly name gives no hint of its', tobacco sponsorship, permitting researchers not to acknowledge explicitly their industry ties. Asked whether listing the re- search center as the funding source for her paper did not ob- scure the fact that it was tobacco industry money, Matanoski re- plied that the center is "a con- glomerate of different funders." Told that more than 90 percent of the budget comes from Philip Morris, R. J. Reynolds Tobacco; Brown & Willamson and Lorillard, she said, "I pay no attention to that. I didn't know what money came from where." Vague about funding Dr. Irving Kessler, a University of Maryland epidemiologist who has served on the center's scientif4 ic advisory board since it opened,' was even more vague about the or-- s igins of the research money he helps distribute each year. "I don't know anything about the funding. But it's not directly r related to the tobacco industry° E he said, adding: "We were assured ; there would be no corporate pres-. •! sure of any kind." . . While much of the center's sec- ondhand smoke research, like Ma-• . tanoski's paper, has produced re- sults favorable to the industry, , other papers it has supported could only hurt the industry. Pa- '; pers by Rebecca Bascom at the •, University of Maryland reported headaches, eye irritation and oth=.. er symptoms caused by indoor smoke. Other papers supported by the center have reported that smoke produced cellular changes in guinea pigs, rats and roosters that could be precursors to cancer or heart disease. Some of the center's defenders point to the fact that about 80 per- - cent of the research it supports . does not involve secondhand . smoke at all, but a wide variety of indoor pollutants ranging from , photocopier emissions to paint , fumes. But industry documents show that one strategy tobacco lawyers ': devised in the (See Smoking„9A] ' z

1 , Supporters deny bias in fnndiiig from air research center [Smoking, from Page 8A ] 1980s to battle the secondhand smoke issue was to encourage ag- gressive research on other indoor air pollutants. ' If they can blame something else, tobacco smoke doesn't look so bad," said Dr. Randolph D. Smoak, a South Carolina cancer surgeon and vice chairman of the American Medical Association board of trustees. Newspapers around the coun- try and some abroad have report- ed a center-financed study by Cor- nell University researcher Alan Hedge finding that "sick building syndrome" is not caused by ciga- rette smoke but by mineral fibers. None of the stories noted the study's tobacco funding. ' In 1996, two•University of CaH- fornia researchers reviewed the center's funding and publication record and found that some proj- ects never were submitted to the scientific advisory board for re- view - and those projects were most likely to support industry positions on secondhand smoke. They also criticized researchers for lack of candor. "We concluded that if CIAR. wants to go on funding people, fine, but they should say that the money comes from the tobacco in- dustry," said Lisa A. Bero, one of the authors. Last year, in a class-action suit of flight attendants against the cigarette makers, industry law- yers tried to present testimony on a study of smoke exposure levels - one that had bypassed the sci- entific board's review. After hearing about the cen- ter's funding of the research, the Florida judge remarked, "It re- minds you of a fox in the hen house in a situation like this." Such accusations are inevitable fallout from the highly politicized tobacco debate, Eisenberg said. But he insisted he has been vigi- lant to prevent politics from filter- ing into the center's deliberations. When the tobacco executives 'I on the board of directors meet with him, Eisenberg says, "They know better than to bring up the politics of this issue. If somebody gets out of line, I say, 'This is not the place for those kind of discus- sions.' " Documents released this year in the Minnesota tobacco case show that the center's founders were not always so reticent. The documents show that an industry-funded institute on in- door air quality was first proposed at a February 1987 meeting in Na- ples, Fla., of top tobacco company lawyers, the Committee of Coun- seL For decades, the committee directed industry-funded research to fend offlawsuits. Fxom the beginning, tobacco lawyers and executives debated whether the institute should pay for high-quality research to boost the industry's lagging prestige or simply churn out studies support- ing industry stances in lawsuits and regulatory hearings. Fear that the Center for Indoor Air Research would be a tool of the industry scared off Irwin H. Bil- lick, a chemist initially recruited forthe job of executive director. During negotiations, "things got a little weird" when Tobacco institute lawyer John Rupp made it clear to him that industry ofS- cials would have the last word on what research was funded. "I even met the head of the To- bacco Institute, and he said, 'You better hurry up and get going, be- cause we need research to get us out of the mess we're in,' " Billick said. Rupp denied that he exercises any control over the center's re- search, a claim Eisenberg con- Srmed. Industry documents show the cigarette companies long debated the center's proper role. In 1992, R. J. Reynolds proposed dropping the center's sophisticated scientif- ic research in favor of studies tar- geted exclusively at blocking fed- eral limits on workplace smoking. Philip Morris objected, and one executive said he feared turning the center into a no-holds-barred political operation would prompt Eisenberg to quit and Matanoski to stop heipingwith the design ofa He decided that balancing lega. and scientific needs would prove too stressfui. Rupp, with the powerhouse to- bacco firm of Covington & Burl- ing, is still general counsel of the Center for Indoor Air Research. The Tobacco Institute's point man on the secondhand smoke is- sue at OSHA hearings in 1994, he is identified in various memos as a key industry strategist. ~ y major planned study. • In the event, R. J. Reynolds backed offits threat. No one resigned; and Matanos- Id was ultimately given $1.6 million herself for the "confounders study," a study of possible factors that might be producing effects attributed to secondhand smoke. Eisenberg said he had never seen the memo. But he added: "Well, I guess rm flattered that they have that opinion of me -- that I would have resigned.. "In an ideal world, it would make it a lot simpler if you didn't have politics involved with the sci- ence."