How Tobacco Industry Hired Scientists and Doctors to Hide that Smoking Causes Cancer
A History of Tobacco Industry Tactics: Study by Allan M Brandt, PhD (excerpts)
Confronted by compelling peer-reviewed scientific evidence of the harms of smoking, the tobacco industry, beginning in the 1950s, used sophisticated public relations approaches to undermine and distort the emerging science.
the tobacco industry would launch a new strategy, largely unprecedented in the history of US industry and business: it would work to erode, confuse, and condemn the very science that now threatened to destroy its prized, highly popular, and exclusive product.
The tobacco industry’s program to engineer the science relating to the harms caused by cigarettes marked a watershed in the history of the industry. It moved aggressively into a new domain, the production of scientific knowledge, not for purposes of research and development but, rather, to undo what was now known: that cigarette smoking caused lethal disease. If science had historically been dedicated to the making of new facts, the industry campaign now sought to develop specific strategies to “unmake” a scientific fact.
produced a compendium of statements by physicians and scientists who questioned the cigarette–lung cancer link.
the best public relations approach was for the industry to become a major sponsor of medical research
1953 Tobacco Ad: We accept an interest in people’s health as a basic responsibility, paramount to every other consideration in our business. We believe the products we make are not injurious to health. We always have and always will cooperate closely with those whose task it is to safeguard the public health
If science now threatened the industry, the industry must “secure” science.
Tobacco Ad:It is an obligation of the Tobacco Industry Research Committee at this time to remind the public of these essential points:
1. There is no conclusive scientific proof of a link between smoking and cancer.
2. Medical research points to many possible causes of cancer… .
5. The millions of people who derive pleasure and satisfaction from smoking can be reassured that every scientific means will be used to get all the facts as soon as possible.
Another strategy deployed throughout the 1950s by the firm was to learn about new scientific findings and consensus reports and to be ready to attack when they were released.
It [Congress] was terrain that greatly favored the tobacco industry, with its lobbying largesse and the strong geopolitical interests of tobacco-growing states.
Trust in science, confidence in the media, and the social responsibility of the corporate enterprise were all substantially harmed by Hill & Knowlton’s efforts on behalf of the tobacco industry.
Conflicts of interest—such as those invented by the tobacco industry—have the potential to undermine and corrupt the scientific enterprise
In their work to control the science, the companies had also found that they had secured considerable advantages in the realms of media, law, and public opinion.