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• Cigarette Company Paid for Lung Cancer Study  

In October 2006, Dr. Claudia Henschke of Weill Cornell Medical College jolted the cancer world with a study saying that 80 percent of lung cancer deaths could be prevented through widespread use of CT scans.

Small print at the end of the study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, noted that it had been financed in part by a little-known charity called the Foundation for Lung Cancer: Early Detection, Prevention & Treatment. A review of tax records by The New York Times shows that the foundation was underwritten almost entirely by $3.6 million in grants from the parent company of the Liggett Group, maker of Liggett Select, Eve, Grand Prix, Quest and Pyramid cigarette brands.

The foundation got four grants from the Vector Group, Liggett’s parent, from 2000 to 2003.

Dr. Jeffrey M. Drazen, editor in chief of the medical journal, said he was surprised. “In the seven years that I’ve been here, we have never knowingly published anything supported by” a cigarette maker, Dr. Drazen said.

An increasing number of universities do not accept grants from cigarette makers . . .

most in the cancer establishment say that Dr. Henschke has yet to prove her case. CT scans have radiation risks and sometimes detect cancers that would not have progressed, leading to risky procedures like biopsies and lung surgery when not needed. . . .

On Monday, The Journal of the American Medical Association published corrections about unreported financial disclosures from Drs. Henschke and Yankelevitz. The patent and pending patents reported by The Cancer Letter “are relevant to these publications,” an editors’ note stated. Editors at the journal were not aware of Dr. Henschke’s association with Liggett . . .

An increasing number of doctors and institutions are setting up foundations to accept money from companies without having to disclose its source, said Dr. Murray Kopelow, chief executive of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education.

“This is the third time in the past few weeks that one of these has been identified to us,” said Dr. Kopelow

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You have to ask yourself the question, ‘Why did the tobacco company want to support her research?’ They want to show that lung cancer is not so bad as everybody thinks because screening can save people; and that’s outrageous.
Dr. Jerome Kassirer, a former editor of The New England Journal of Medicine and the author of a book about conflicts of interest, on Liggett funding of the Weill Cornell lung cancer CT screening study.

If you’re using blood money, you need to tell people you’re using blood money.
Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, which gave Dr. Henschke more than $100,000 in grants from 2004 to 2007, money it would not have provided had it known of Liggett’s grants.