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Email from George Leikauf, Ph.D. (University of Cincinnati Medical Center) Subject: RE: Message from India Dear Anna White and Dhirendra Sinha: Thank you for your email and your commitment to improving human health. First, let be clear I am in total agreement with you, tobacco usage is the leading preventable cause of death and disease in the World. Those who grow it, sell it, market it, or profit from it in any way are a part of the problem. I think all use of tobacco should be illegal and tobacco should be banned. In your letter, you suggest that I am a reviewer for the "Phillip Morris External Research Program", which is an error. The independent orgainization is The Research Management Group (RMG). Nonetheless, I realize that RMG is funded by a tobacco company. When I agreed to review grants for RMG (the organization funded by Phillip Morris), I did not change any of my opinions on tobacco. I continue to view tobacco as the biggest health problem in the World and will not take any money for the reviews or any activities I do for this group. So, please be assured I am not in this for the money. Please also note that I always have and will continue to speak out against tobacco every time I have a chance, (as I have done for over 20 years). The use of tobacco money to fund research is a difficult issue. It seems easy at first, but I am still without an simple answer. In California, for example, tobacco sales (tax) provides money used for research. In fact, the study you mention by Dr. Glantz was funded by those funds. This is true of many other states as well. Besides taxes, the tobacco settlement included funding of research. This has been enacted in many states like Arizona. However, not all states agreed to spend the settlement for research. For example, neither Ohio, Kentucky or Indiana will use the tobacco money for research. Instead, the state legislature in Kentucky will use the funds to help tobacco farmers grow more tobacco. It not easy to see the line you have drawn. For example, all food market sell tobacco and profit by those sales. I worked my way through College by working as a clerk in the market. Was I a part of the problem? Can you or I stop shopping at the market? If one buys a Oreo, are we contributing to tobacco companies or just buying a cookie most people like? (In addition, several of the Medical School endowments contain tobacco stocks. Will you refuse your next pay check?) I believe it is what one does with the money that counts. I have used my education to prevent and eliminate disease. I have spoken out many times and teach medical students to speak out against tobacco. So there seems to a conundrum about the use of tobacco money to conduct
research. I strongly believe that we need to continue to examine how tobacco
causes diseases like cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and
heart disease. If money could be used to teach children not to use tobacco
this also is a good use of tobacco money. Nonetheless, we need to find
better ways to treat those individuals who stop smoking but still are
at risk. For example, those who quit smoking have a higher risk of cancer
for the next five years. Most if not all the loss of lung function is
irreversible. We need to know why this happens so we can address these
issues. In the real world people smoke, some stop but many can't! If you could prevent illness cause by tobacco, I suggest that you apply for the funds to develop better ways to prevent tobacco use, and to educate all in the dangers of tobacco. I agree with the Hippocratic oath, but can you assure me that harm will come from this action? If so, I'll walk away. Scorn would be an easy answer, but is it realistic? George Leikauf, Ph.D. -----Original Message-----
Dear Philip Morris peer reviewers and Scientific Advisory Board members, We are strongly opposed to their lending legitimacy to a corporation that profits from hawking addiction, disease, and death around the world. We are concerned about this given the well-documented instances of misuse of scientific data by the tobacco industry (see JAMA, Vol 274, No 3 and Vol 280, No 13 as well as Glantz, Cigarette Papers). Dhirendra N.Sinha |