Friedman, Gary Kanter, M.D.
(Pulmonologist (Private Practice), Anti-Tobacco Expert) PlaintiffDr. Gary Friedman was born circa 1934 (LAT 9/18/94). With the Kaiser-Permanent Medical Care Program, Oakland CA (1994) (LAT 9/18/94). Friedman was one of the 44 scientists rated in 1960s notes a CTR official for their benefit to the tobacco industry (LAT 9/18/94). "I needed support for research back then . . . . [The CTR] was very interested in how smokers differed from nonsmokers in health and mortality" per Friedman (LAT 9/18/94). Friedman worked with Carl C. Seltzer, a Harvard anthropologist, whom the CTR considered a favored scientist (LAT 9/18/94). Friedman now says that at first he "compromised" with Seltzer on their early studies (LAT 9/18/94). After a further study convinced Friedman that "quitting smoking really seemed to do some good," Friedman says, Seltzer and CTR "disassociated themselves" from those findings ( 9/18/94), Friedman published his results in the New England Journal of Medicine in February 1979 (L 9/18/94). Seltzer wrote to the New England Journal of Medicine: "These authors [including Friedman] conclude that stopping smoking appears to result in a substantial reduction in coronary mortality. I find the procedures used in their article to be questionable and the conclusions to be unjustified . . . ." Seltzer, now retired, insists that Friedman "wanted to continue getting money from the [CTR] but didn't want me to have an equal say. His link to smoking and mortality was two or three times more than anybody in the country. Sure, they (CTR) gave me and Harvard a lot of money . . . maybe a million or so. I was at it for a great many years. The council liked my research. I also showed there was no relationship between heart disease and smoking. And this business of secondary smoke, passive smoke, is absolute nonsense , , , nonsense. I don't care what the surgeon general says! What does the surgeon know! He only knows what he is told!" (LAT 9/18/94). Seltzer argued that many CTR grants have little to do with smoking or are sometimes critical of it (LAT 9/18/94).