The Kentucky Tobacco And Health Research Institute

The state of Kentucky established the Tobacco and Health Research Institute at the University of Kentucky to conduct a program of research on smoking and health issues. The institute is financed through the state excise tax on cigarettes, and its external grants are approved by the Kentucky Tobacco Research Board. The board's membership includes a representative of the tobacco product manufacturers, and B&W General Counsel Ernest Pepples held that seat in 1984 {1602.01}. The Kentucky Tobacco and Health Research Institute was publicized as an independent taxpayer-funded program that supports research on tobacco. However, the documents suggest that tobacco company lawyers were involved in the administration of this program.

In a November 6, 1980, letter, Ernest Pepples asks attorney Timothy Finnegan to check the background of a Dr. David Justus, of the University of Louisville, who has requested funding from the Tobacco and Health Research Institute {1600.01}. Justus had written Dr. Gary Huber, then the director of the Institute, to ask if the institute would be interested in funding his work on tobacco hypersensitivity {1600.01}. Pepples forwarded the request to Finnegan and asked Finnegan:

I wish you would find out, without tipping over any cans , what Dr. Justus has done in the tobacco allergy field. At this point all I would like to have is a search of the literature to see if Dr. Justus has published on tobacco and how we assess his work. I would not want him to become worried that a tobacco company somehow is reviewing his request for continued assistance from the [Kentucky Tobacco and Health Research] Institute [emphasis added]. {1600.01}

This is a most interesting episode. The kind of preliminary enquiry regarding funding for a possible research project would normally be answered by the agency staff with a letter encouraging or discouraging a proposal. Only after such a formal proposal had been received and favorably reviewed would the proposal normally be submitted to a policy-making board for final approval of funding. The documents do not indicate how Pepples came into possession of the Justus letter to Huber, the institute director. Pepples's request for discretion in checking Justus's background indicates that he wanted to keep quiet the active role that he and the other industry lawyers were playing in the selection of grantees. In any event, transmission of Justus's request to a lawyer from an out-of-state law firm suggests funding requests to the institute were subjected to influences other than scientific peer review.

The documents reveal that Pepples also asked William Shinn, a lawyer at Shook, Hardy, and Bacon, to evaluate the scientific work done by the Kentucky Tobacco and Health Research Institute. Following the September 1984 meeting of the Tobacco Research Board, Pepples wrote Bill Shinn at Shook, Hardy, and Bacon with some concerns about the research program the institute had developed.

Looking at the Kentucky Institute's Annual Report of Research, it seems to cover an impressive amount of work in many disciplines. Most, if not all of it, however, has been published before by others. ...

I believe Layten Davis [director of the institute at the time] is interested in positive aspects of smoking. He has encouraged the work in stress abatement and good people are working in the area. Dr. Martin and his colleagues have been looking at the effect of nicotine on the dog's brain. They are seeking to

identify effects on the brain and then to selectively mimic those effects with new compounds. Both Martin and Fell appear to be on the leading edge of positive research.

I would be interested in hearing your views on the credits and debits of the current research at the Kentucky Tobacco and Health Research Institute. {1603.01}

(The discussion of Martin's research indicates that the institute, like BAT and Philip Morris, was engaged in research on nicotine analogues. The "positive" research referred to in the letter is research that would demonstrate a benefit of smoking—e.g., stress abatement.)

The Kentucky Tobacco and Health Research Institute also turned to the industry and its lawyers for help in preparing congressional testimony. In a letter dated September 28, 1983, Ernest Pepples informs John Rupp, an attorney at Covington and Burling, about one such request:

Dr. Layten Davis, Director of the Kentucky Tobacco & Health Research Institute, has just received a letter from Congressman Larry Hopkins seeking comment on Moakley's self-extinguishing cigarette bill [see the discussion of fire-safe cigarettes in chapter 7].

Layten called me for help in replying to Hopkins's letter. He wants to say something about better fabrics and better ashtrays and something about the need for deliberate care and study before tinkering with cigarette construction. He is particularly concerned about the biological effects of newfangled "self-extinguishing" cigarettes.

I said that Spears [Alex Spears, research director at Lorillard Tobacco] had prepared a good state-of-the-art summary, which Davis said he'd like to see. Could you send me the Spears paper and any other testimony you think should be provided to Dr. Davis. He also asked about MORE and the Nat Sherman cigarettes [two brands of cigarettes that were relatively fire-safe], of course. {1601.01}

The episodes revealed by the documents betray an unusually close working relationship between the institute, which presented itself as an independent arm of a publicly funded university, and industry lawyers, both in the evaluation of the institute's research and the institute's participation in public policy formulation.