Email from Roger A. Jenkins (Oak Ridge National Laboratory) Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2001 4:26 AM Jack, thanks for your note. I appreciate that you want to be able to reduce the health impact of smoking in BC, and you see that one way of doing it is to push the concept of smoke-free environments. While I believe that preventing kids from taking up the habit until they are old enough to make a reasoned choice is a noble goal, I do not believe that we should employ what I see as pretty shaky evidence - demonstrable health effects in non-smokers from exposure to environmental tobacco smoke Ð to justify the goal. More simply put, many individuals say they want to ban indoor smoking on the basis of health effects, when what they really want is to use the prohibition to meet other objectives, such as reducing the tobacco industry market share, making it easier to quit smoking, reducing annoyance, etc. It would be one thing if health advocates would say, look we want to prohibit indoor smoking because of these reasons, even though we know that the health evidence against second hand smoke is weak, at best. However, they do not do that, probably because it would be a hard sell. You may be interested in a note that I wrote someone in the early stages of this email blitz that has started. You might be interested in my response to one of the folks who sent me a message. Here it is: --------------------- Dear Mr. Smith I received your message, which is now the third communication I have received concerning my willingness to be part of the peer review panel for the Philip Morris External Research Program (PRERP). However, since it was not personally addressed to me, just a mail list, I considered it to be "spam" and nearly deleted it. However, I thought that a few comments to you would be in order. Based on your comments, it is clear to me that you or those individuals who have been sending out these mailings, attempting to tamper with and influence the peer review process, do not understand the concept of being a scientist. As scientists, we seek the truth. Sometimes we learn things we wish we had not, or the results of our work are not congruent with our personal tastes. We face the truth and seek to better understand the world around us. Every organization has a point of view, and in some sense, organizations are like you, in that they advocate a certain position. If one accuses the tobacco industry of having a particular point of view, I think one could make the argument that every organization which funds research has some point of view that they would like to see the research findings support. The government, which has been an advocate for all sorts of positions, from dietary habits to smoking to drug use, funds hundreds of millions of dollars worth of research each year. The drug industry funds research, as does the food industry, the tobacco industry, the electric power industry, etc, etc. If Essential Action were to fund research, would the work done, or the peer review panel which they would seat to review their program, be any less suspect than any other group with a point of view? And that is exactly one of the reasons why the scientific community uses peer review to screen research proposals or scientific articles submitted for publication. The peer review process exists in part to insure that advocacy - which is part of human nature - does not get in the way of finding the truth. This peer review process is the very process with which you seek to tamper by making thinly veiled threats that those peer reviewers who seek to be a part of the PMERP process will damage their scientific reputation. I chose to associate myself with the PMERP because I believe, based on 25 years of having conducted research for a variety of federal and non-federal sponsors in the area of tobacco smoke chemistry and human exposure, that the program is likely to be focused on supporting high quality science that seeks the truth, not support a particular advocacy position. If my perception of the program were to change based on new information, I would terminate my affiliation. Call me naive if you like, but I don't recall having seen any peer reviewed papers in the area of tobacco science with your name on them. The point here is that associating myself with a particular organization does not necessarily mean that I agree with or support everything that the organization does today or has done in the past. I do not condone everything my employer, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has done in the past with regard to radioactive waste disposal, but I still chose to associate myself with ORNL. I have been very active in the Sierra Club for over two decades, and I do not support all their positions on environmental issues. That is often the case with large organizations. I would imagine that there are active members of the Catholic which support artificial contraception, and people who refuse to move out of the Portland area, even if they don't support the City's anti-sprawl regulations. Philip Morris sells a legal product in a legal manner throughout this country and the world. While I am not a health professional, it is clear to me that there are health risks associated with using their products. People who choose to use those products must weigh the benefits received from that use against those risks. It occurs to me as I write this that I could be just as easily be talking about the high-fat salad dressings that Kraft markets as the tobacco products that Philip Morris sells. And perhaps that is indicative of my position on this issue. One has to be living in a cave not to have heard of the health risks associated with various life-style choices. Some people choose to eat a relatively high fat diet, because it tastes good. Some people choose not to engage in regular intensive exercise, because it takes too much of their valuable time. Some people choose not to imbibe any alcohol because of religious prohibitions. Some people choose to smoke, because it makes them feel good. Some people choose to backpack by themselves in grizzly country because they seek the solitude that it affords. The point is that we all make decisions as to how to live our life based on our personal values. Those values may change as we get older, and perhaps wiser, but such is the way of life. The fact that you do not like to way Philip Morris chooses to market its products seems a pretty weak reason for me to disassociate myself from the PMERP. You mentioned flawed research in the area of first or secondhand smoke. Since I have published in the peer-reviewed literature on both those topics, I would be interested in any particular papers you might have in mind. My experience has been when talking to anti-tobacco advocates regarding research is that they never want to attack the experimental design of the study or the data analysis. Instead, their concept of "flawed" research seems pretty dependent on the organization that funded the research. If it was an organization that the advocates did not like, by definition, the work was "flawed." Again, that is why we have the peer-review process, to insure that we get to the truth, and that published work contains a minimum of flaws. Unfortunately, your attempts to get first class scientists to disassociate themselves from the PMERP seeks to wreck the peer review process and works to diminish the quality of science that is performed throughout the world, not enhance it. I think you are barking up the wrong tree. --------------------------- OK, such is my position. YOu will note that I am focusing on peer reviewed research, not what the tobacco companies have done or may have done in the past. I choose to focus on the issue at hand, whereas you are trying somehow to tie together health effects of smoking to who peer reviews PM's research program. I see this as a pretty weak link, but I would be happy to discuss it further with you. Roger Roger A. Jenkins, Ph.D. Our Group Web Page: Personal Web Page: |