Reacting to "Undesirable" Results

According to the principles of academic freedom, researchers who work at universities are free to publish the findings of their research in the scientific literature regardless of the outcome of the research. Although tobacco industry—sponsored research organizations have maintained publicly that they do not restrict publication by their researchers, the documents show that they actually did attempt to influence scientific publication.

A document (undated) describing the organization and policy of TIRC, and later CTR, contains the following statement about scientific publication:

Recipients of Tobacco Industry Research Committee grants are assured complete scientific freedom in conducting their investigations and reporting the results of their research in the accepted scientific manner through medical and scientific journals and societies. The investigators receiving grants from the Committee are alone responsible for publishing or reporting their research results [emphasis added]. {1920.01, p. 6}

CTR's behavior regarding publication of results unfavorable to the tobacco industry, however, did not always follow these ideals.

When CTR-sponsored research that was unfavorable toward the tobacco industry was published, CTR had to defend the research to the tobacco companies. In a 1977 memo from Robert C. Hockett, assistant scientific director of CTR, to Addison Yeaman, president of CTR, Hockett attempts to undermine the conclusion of a paper published by C. G. Becker in the Journal of Experimental Medicine (13). Becker's paper concluded that glycoproteins isolated from tobacco leaves produce a substance known to cause allergic reactions and blood clotting. In his memo Hockett claims that Becker did not provide evidence showing that tobacco contains glycoproteins. Therefore,

[A]ll their work on rutin [a glycoprotein] has an obscure and doubtful relevance to the effects of smoke exposure on human subjects. ...

I regard the Becker-Bauer publication, as it appeared, to be very unfortunately premature.

Some of the observations might have been reported legitimately, in a different form, if the extensive speculations had been modified appropriately. {1910.01, p. 2}

Hockett also notes that CTR cannot be held responsible for the publication of Becker's results:

The present paper was seen here [at CTR] only after its submission to and acceptance by the journal. It represented a wide digression from the subject of the grant as we understood it. Our request that credit lines to The Council and to individual persons be deleted was reported to be 'too late' and the paper, with press releases, was published shortly thereafter, to our discomfort. {1910.01, p. 3}

CTR also attempted to turn a CTR-sponsored publication that was unfavorable to the industry into a public relations advantage. When such a publication came out, the tobacco industry publicized the fact that it had encouraged the author's research; it also prepared a response to the work. For example, in response to a paper on smoking as a cause of heart disease, published by CTR grantee Gary Friedman in

the New England Journal of Medicine (14), CTR issued the following public statement:

Grantees are always encouraged to publish their findings. This study reports relationships between various factors and death rates. There isn't any suggestion of cause-and-effect. ... This and so much else in the medical literature just shows that we have a great deal more to learn before we can reach any solid conclusions about smoking. It may or may not be hazardous, and that's where we are. {1916.01}