Jump to full article: AP, 2008-03-26
Author: MARILYNN MARCHIONE and STEPHANIE NANO
Intro: The disclosure of hidden tobacco money behind a big study suggesting that lung scans might help save smokers from cancer has shocked the research community and raised fresh concern about industry influence in important science.
Two medical journals that published studies by Weill Cornell Medical College researchers in 2006 are looking into tobacco cash and other financial ties that weren't revealed. . . .
In retrospect, Gotto said perhaps the tobacco cash and patents that Cornell researchers hold on related technology should have been disclosed in Henschke's journal articles. Instead, one listed only the Cornell foundation. . . .
The National Cancer Institute's study now under way has several comparison groups. It, too, has been criticized because two of its leaders were paid by tobacco companies as expert witnesses in lawsuits. Brawley says these were small amounts and one researcher gave the money back. Results of the federal study are expected in 2009 or 2010.
Laurie Fenton Ambrose, president of the patient advocacy group, the Lung Cancer Alliance, has complained about the government study conflicts, and says attacks on Henschke are "mudslinging."
"There is a difference between money that is provided independent of any tobacco control that would help fund research that would advance better patient outcomes and money that tobacco (companies) pay researchers for their testimony against screening in class action lawsuits," she said.
However, her group has taken industry money, too — from a maker of CT scanning equipment.
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