Thursday, July 10, 2014

Throwback Thursday: Tobacco companies cast doubt on research

From "Inventing Conflicts of Interest: A History of Tobacco Industry Tactics" published in the January 2012 edition of the American Journal of Public Health:

"One R.J. Reynolds official announced to other industry executives in November 1953 that the company had formed a bureau of scientific information to 'combat the propaganda which is being directed at the tobacco industry.'  At the same time, American Tobacco began to collect the public statements of scientists who had expressed skepticism about the research findings indicting tobacco.  The company's own public relations counsel understood that it would be critical to create questions about the reliability of new findings and to attack the notion that these studies constituted proof of the relationship of smoking to cancer."

The Legacy Tobacco Documents Library includes tobacco industry videos used to attempt to debunk research showing that smoking is harmful to health.

Click here to view videos that cast doubt on scientific research including one in which it is suggested that auto emissions, not cigarettes, may be to blame for increasing rates of lung cancer.

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