FlamingText

Making Up Your Mind Pt III

Damage Control

  1954 was a rough year for the tobacco industry. In 1952 Reader’s Digest published an article entitled “Cancer by the Carton” that detailed the emerging scientific evidence suggesting a link between smoking and lung cancer. The stir it created opened the media floodgates, and in the following two years similar stories had run in publications ranging from the New York Times to Good Housekeeping. Cigarette sales went into a sudden decline. An internal memo of the Tobacco Institute, an umbrella trade organization for tobacco growers and producers, referred to it as “the 1954 Emergency.” Clearly those in the industry believed that the spate of research implicating their product as a contributing factor in a host of serious health problems would do untold damage to their bottom line, particularly if that research continued receiving prominent and uncritical coverage in the major news and opinion outlets.

   There were really two problems, from the point of view of the tobacco industry: One was the research itself and the second (and far more serious) problem was the media coverage of that research. In order to address both of those problems and nip the growing public backlash against tobacco products in the bud, in December 1953 a group consisting of the heads of the major tobacco companies met with one of the finest minds in the PR industry, John Hill, and discussed with him their interest in sponsoring a pro-cigarette campaign to offset the negative publicity. Two weeks later his PR firm, Hill and Knowlton * , returned with the proposal that an organization be created whose goal would be convincing the public that the dangers of smoking had been exaggerated. It would do this by presenting compelling scientific research showing the case against tobacco to be inconclusive.

The resulting organization was the Tobacco Institute Research Committee, which was funded by Philip Morris and staffed by former employees of Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds and Brown & Williamson. The TIRC announced its arrival by purchasing ad space in over 400 newspapers across the country, reassuring the public of their deep concern for the health of their customers and of the general public. The ads promised that the TIRC would be working closely with health officials and members of the scientific community to investigate the negative health impacts, if any, associated with smoking. It also promised that, in the unlikely event that evidence of adverse effects was discovered, the next phase of research would focus on producing cigarettes that were safe, so that smokers everywhere could continue enjoying the rich, smooth flavor of their favorite brands for years and years to come.

   The TIRC’s director, Dr. Clarence Cook Little, had previously been the director for the American Society for the Control of Cancer (later called the American Cancer Society) and was a widely-respected geneticist. With these impressive credentials in hand he set about finding sympathetic forums for the TIRC’s position that there was no scientific basis for drawing a connection between cigarettes and cancer, and he was given the opportunity to publicly air this position through no less prestigious news outlets than Edward R. Murrow’s “See It Now” program *   (a transcript of which can be found here) and the New York Times, wherein Waldemar Kaempffert, “the dean of American Science Writers,” informed his readers that the TIRC was on the case:

Although “many will argue that an impartial investigation can hardly be expected from a body of experts paid by the tobacco industry," Kaempffert wrote, nevertheless he considered the TIRC’s a credible source, in part because "Dr. Little is an eminent geneticist, a type of scientist who has the courage to face facts and to state them."

    In spite of his alleged courage at facing the facts and stating them, Dr. Little, eminent geneticist, testified in a 1960 court case that the TIRC had to date conducted no studies on the effects of tobacco smoke, which it did not view to be carcinogenic. Furthermore, they had ruled out the efficacy of animal experimentation to investigate tobacco’s effects. Nor were there any plans to conduct epidemiological studies. Considering this somewhat lackluster record of conducting scientific inquiries into its purported area of expertise, one might reach the conclusion that the TIRC in fact did no research whatsoever and was merely a PR front. But that assumption would be incorrect, for while it certainly does seem that the bulk of their efforts were directed at disseminating a tobacco-friendly message to the American public, they did also fund research into the causes of cancer. They seemed particularly interested in identifying other possible causes of cancer besides smoking, and perhaps due to Dr. Little’s prior experience in genetics research, they funded numerous studies into possible hereditary bases for cancer. As it became clear that any serious examination of lung cancer and heart disease might produce results that would prove unfavorable to their position, subsequent studies avoided any examination of those illnesses. Research into cell biology, developmental biology, immunology, genetics, pharmacology, neuroscience and virology was undertaken in an attempt to isolate some “third factor” that was to blame for lung cancer in smokers. Much was made of the problem of equating correlation with causation, and Tobacco Institute researchers frequently put forth the argument that it was possible that the same genetic traits that caused certain people to smoke “to excess” (while paradoxically denying that there were any health risks whatsoever associated with smoking) might also give them a greater propensity towards developing cancer.

    In spite of all these efforts to produce alternative explanations for why smokers developed cancer at rates far above the statistical norm, the industry’s position that there was no causal connection continued losing ground. Shortly after an especially damning 1964 Surgeon General’s report came out detailing the mounting body of evidence connecting smoking to elevated cancer risk, the TIRC changed its name to the Council for Tobacco Research. Subsequent lobbying and public relations activities were taken over by the Tobacco Institute. To further create the appearance of separation between the research and advocacy arms the CTR’s Scientific Advisory Board was created to fund promising independent research. In this way they cultivated a cadre of sympathetic scientists at universities and research foundations that could be counted on to produce results to bolster their arguments, leaving it to the PR experts at the Tobacco Institute to ensure that the results of any such studies were given favorable coverage in the media (while of course taking pains to conceal or omit, whenever possible, any mention of the funding source for these "independent" studies.) Not only was this strategy wildly successful at swaying public opinion and forestalling government regulation of their product, but the PR techniques developed by the Tobacco Institute and CTR went on to become standard practice in a host of damage control campaigns that were to follow. The identifying features should be instantly recognizable to anybody who follows current news reporting on a host of scientific controversies.

Next: Part IV!

Posted by flamingbanjo at October 24, 2006 05:44 PM