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John Luik is a long-time tobacco industry
consultant, who refers to himself as a government/professional/corporation
consultant with interests in public policy, particularly the
use of science in policy. He has a long track record of working
with American and Canadian tobacco companies in the second-hand
smoke issue. Luik has written numerous articles on the over-exaggeration
of the health effects of second-hand smoke, has spoken at
tobacco company conferences and workshops, has been employed
as a anti-smoke-free spokesperson, is a featured columnist
on the FORCES web site (a smokers' rights organization), and
co-authored a book with Gio Gori, published
by British Columbia's Fraser Institute, called "Passive
Smoke: The EPA's Betrayal of Science and Policy" in which
they blame the EPA for producing "junk
science".
During Toronto's smoke-free bylaw campaign in 1999, Luik
was asked by the Ontario Restaurant Association (now the Ontario,
Restaurant, Hotel and Motel Association) and the Greater Toronto
Hotel Association to speak against the proposed smoke-free
bylaw at a press conference on May 26, 1999. Luik criticized
a report on the link between lung cancer and second-hand smoke
authored by Toronto's Medical Officer of Health. Although
he has referred to himself as Dr. Luik, he is not a scientist:
his doctorate is in philosophy.
As revealed in a June 2001 CBC TV investigative report, Luik
has made false statements about his academic credentials (CBC
T.V. News and Current Affairs, June 21, 2001; CBC Television).
For example, during Luik's professorship at Brock University,
the Dean of Humanities, Cecil Abrahams, discovered that Luik
had lied about visiting professorships at other academic institutions
and had added books or articles to his list of publications
that did not exist. Abrahams (who is now Vice-Cancellor at
West Cape University in South Africa) made the following statement
about Luik during an interview for the CBC investigative report:
"I certainly would not trust anything John Luik says
because he must be the worst case of fraud that I have come
across and I've been an administrator at universities for
a long period of time, both in North America and in Africa,
and I think he's by far the worst case of fraudulent behaviour."
As previously mentioned, Luik has participated in tobacco
industry workshops and strategy meetings. He is listed in
a Canadian Tobacco Manufacturers' Council agenda
for a June 22, 1998 meeting in Toronto to discuss strategies
for public smoking initiatives. Luik was scheduled to speak
on second-hand smoke research, along with another tobacco
industry consultant, Pierre Lemieux.
Luik has also made his work-in-progress available to tobacco
companies and organizations prior to publication. For example,
in 1993 Luik was in correspondence with The Confederation
of European Community Cigarettes Manufacturers Limited regarding
the publication of his paper, "Pandora's Box - The Dangers
of Politically Corrupted Science for Democratic Public Policy",
informing the Confederation that his article had been submitted
for publication to Philosophy and Public Affairs Journal.
In an internal Confederation
memo dated September 9, 1993 , the author of the memo
instructs the tobacco company representatives that "until
it [Luik's paper] is formally received, members should NOT
[emphasis theirs] make use of the article for external lobbying
purposes."
In a subsequent memo
to the Confederation, dated November 9, 1993 , the author
informs the Confederation members of Luik's concerns over
proposed changes to his paper by the Philosophy and Public
Affairs Journal, and relates Luik's request for input on how
to proceed.
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Gio Gori is a U.S. tobacco industry
consultant, dating back to the 1970s. He co-authored a book
with John Luik published by the Fraser Institute in British
Columbia called "Passive Smoke: The EPA's Betrayal of
Science and Policy" in which they blame the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency for producing "junk
science" (please refer to Industry
Campaigns). Gori is also an associate editor of the journal
Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology, the same journal which
published the Black Dog Pub ventilation pilot project study
authored by another U.S. tobacco industry consultant, Roger
Jenkins. The journal is partly funded by the U.S. tobacco
company RJ Reynolds Inc. Please refer to the "Ventilation
Solution" in Ontario to read more about the Black
Dog ventilation project and other industry connections in
play during the City of Toronto's smoke-free bylaw campaign
in 1999.
Americans for Non-Smokers' Rights provides an excellent summary
on Gio Gori. Below is an excerpt from that summary:
Gio
Gori is a former scientist at the National Cancer Institute
(NCI) who now works as a consultant to the tobacco industry.
Gori has the distinction of being one of 13 scientists who
accepted big bucks from the Tobacco Institute to write letters
to the editor attacking the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency's (EPA) landmark 1992 report, "Respiratory Health
Effects of Passive Smoking," which classified secondhand
smoke a human carcinogen and resulted in an onslaught of
strong local clean indoor air ordinances.
According
to an August 4, 1998 article written by David Hanners in
the Pioneer Press, Gori "was paid $20,137 for two letters
to the Wall Street Journal, one letter to the British medical
publication The Lancet, one letter to the NCI Journal and
one opinion piece to the Wall Street Journal, records show.
The opinion piece was rejected by the editors of the Wall
Street Journal, but that didn't stop Gori from billing the
law firm of Covington and Burling $4,137.50."
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Roger Jenkins is a chemist in the
Chemical and Analytical Sciences Division of the Oak Ridge
National Laboratory (ORNL) in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Although
the ORNL is part of the U.S. Department of Energy, the lab
and its researchers are available for private consulting work.
Jenkins' working relationship with American tobacco companies
dates back to the 1970s. A simple search on his name ("jenkins
r") on the Legacy Library web site produces over 4,000
industry document hits. Jenkins' specialty is conducting research
for the industry that shows little or no exposure to second-hand
smoke in indoor places. Sponsors for his research have also
included the Council for Tobacco Research and the Centre for
Indoor Air Research (CIAR), a tobacco industry-sponsored research
centre that was dismantled as a result of the 1998 Master
Settlement Agreement.
Jenkins was a principal investigator for a 1994 CIAR project
costing $1.2 million that was designed to show that second-hand
smoke exposure in non-smokers was significantly lower than
estimates used by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency,
and that "there are no good, existing data to determine
'real-life' personal exposures to ETS [environmental tobacco
smoke] in non-smokers, particularly in the workplace."
Click
here to view the CIAR document. In another example, Jenkins
received an $855,000
grant from the U.S. Tobacco Industry ETS Advisory Group.
Over the years, Jenkins has been asked to appear in hearings
that oppose smoke-free measures. In 1997, Jenkins was called
by the tobacco industry as an expert witness to give testimony
to dispute the link between cancer and second-hand smoke during
the Florida flight attendants lawsuit (also known as the Mildred
Wiley lawsuit) brought against the industry. Judge Robert
P. Kaye of the Dade County District Court Judge barred Jenkins
from testifying because R.J. Reynolds' assistance with fieldwork
and lab analysis made his second-hand smoke research suspect,
thus giving him a pro-industry bias.
In Canada, Jenkins has provided assistance to the pro-ventilation
opposition and the tobacco industry. During the City of Toronto's
smoke-free bylaw campaign in 1999, Jenkins conducted a ventilation
pilot project study at the Black Dog Pub in Scarborough, Ontario,
designed to provide the Ontario Restaurant Association with
evidence for their pro-ventilation stance. Later, the study,
"Environmental Tobacco Smoke in the Non-smoking Section
of a Restaurant: A Case Study", was published in the
December 2001 issue of Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology.
The opposition argued that since the results were published
in a peer-reviewed journal, they would have to be taken seriously.
Subsequent reviews of the published study agreed that there
were flaws in methodology, misrepresentation of findings,
and that many aspects of the findings had no relevance to
the conclusions. In addition, funding for the research came
from the Canadian Tobacco Manufacturers' Council funneled
through the Hotel Association of Canada. (Please refer to
the "Ventilation
Solution" in Ontario for a more detailed explanation
of the Black Dog Pub study and the tobacco industry's connections
to it).
Jenkins and the ORNL continue to do research for Big Tobacco.
In 2003, Jenkins received $750,000 from Philip Morris to conduct
a study of indoor air pollution levels, including second-hand
smoke. Jenkins is on the public record insisting that Philip
Morris funding the project would not influence the study or
its results (Munger F, "Oak Ridge lab to do smoke study,"
Knoxville News-Sentinel, February 13, 2003).
Jenkins has also been called as an expert witness on second-hand
smoke for hospitality plaintiffs before the Ontario Health
Services Appeal and Review Board.
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Derrick Finn is a Canadian
tobacco industry consultant who, with Roger Jenkins,
is an author of the Black Dog Pub ventilation study that is
discussed in detail in the "Ventilation
Solution" in Ontario section of our web site. Finn
is named in Canadian Tobacco Manufacturers' Council memos,
and in one dated March 30, 1998 (Re:
Ventilation and Public Smoking. Consumers Gas Now On-Side
in Toronto ), he is referred to as the CTMC's "technical
advisor" on ventilation technology.
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Luc Martial was formerly
part of the anti-tobacco advocacy movement in Canada before
suddenly switching sides in June 2001 to work as a tobacco
industry consultant. He was previously employed as a policy
analyst with the Non-Smokers' Rights Association, as a public
affairs manager with the Canadian Council on Smoking and Health,
as the Director of the National Clearinghouse on Tobacco and
Health and as well worked in the the Office of Research, Surveillance
and Evaluation and the Office of Policy and Planning within
the Tobacco Control Programme at Health Canada.
Since defecting to the side of the tobacco industry, Martial
has had a few articles published on the FORCES web site (a
smokers' rights organization) and in newspapers. In these
articles, he is critical of health "extremists"
and accuses tobacco-control advocates of being purely motivated
by their own survival rather than putting the public interest
first. He also likens the anti-movement in Canada to an "industry".
Most recently, Martial was hired by Tobacco Farmers in Crisis to assist in advocating for a $1.1 billion tobacco buyout.
The following are articles written by Martial:
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Pierre Lemieux is a
Canadian industry consultant who regularly uses libertarian
and rights rhetoric in his critiques of tobacco regulation,
denies that second-hand smoke causes diseases in non-smokers,
and labels anti-tobacco advocates as the "anti-smoking jihad"
(National Post article, April 3, 2003). He has also openly
admitted to accepting research contracts from the tobacco
industry.
To view a June 22, 1998 meeting agenda, entitled Evaluating
Strategies in Response to Public Smoking Initiatives,
at which Lemieux spoke on the economic impact of smoke-free
legislation, click
here.
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Theodor Sterling Associates' ties to the tobacco industry go as far back as 1968/69. The organization claims to be "a multi-disciplinary consulting firm providing indoor air quality, environmental and a variety of occupational hygiene & safety consulting services to clients in Canada, the United States and South America." The organization has been known to generate studies and attack evidence on the dangers of second-hand smoke. Some of these examples include:
- Funding from Philip Morris in the amount of $87,000 for a research project to "Critically Review the Major Currently Used Mathematical Models of Environmental Tobacco Smoke Exposure and Risk."
- Representation of the tobacco industry’s perspective, and that of their gambling industry fronts, in ASHRAE committees.
- Has been paid to testify for the defense in secondhand smoke-related litigation.
- Has testified in favour of the tobacco industry in OSHA hearings.
- Most recently, Elia Sterling, Sterling Associates’ current president (and son of Theodor), spoke in favour of ventilation to the Hotels Association of
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Michael Evans is an economist at the Kellogg School, Northwestern University, and was an economic consultant for the defunct tobacco industry front group, National Smokers Alliance (NSA). He was repeatedly hired to refute research on the economic impact of smoke-free laws. Some of his works include:
- An NSA-funded review of a 1994 study by Dr. Stanton Glantz and Lisa Smith. This study showed that smoking bans do not negatively impact restaurant sales. Evans called the study "very sloppy"” and stated that its conclusion was "unwarranted".
- Another NSA-funded critique of another Glantz study (published in the American Journal of Public Health) which showed that tax receipts in 15 cities were unaffected by smoke-free restaurant ordinances. Three years later, the NSA submitted a letter and critique by Evans to the AJPH claiming that the Glantz study was flawed. They also formed the group Californians for Scientific Integrity (CSI) and filed a lawsuit alleging scientific fraud against Glantz and the University of California.
- A critique on an economic impact study conducted by Cornell University and published in the Journal of Public Health Management Practices. This study found that New York City’s original smoke-free law in 1995 had no adverse economic effect. Evans, however, claimed that the study was "fatally flawed" and the city experienced a 12-15% decrease in revenues due to the smoke-free law.
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W. Kip Viscusi is a professor of law and economics at Harvard University. He has testified as an expert witness for tobacco companies in many cases. He argues that smokers have a solid understanding of the risks of tobacco and thus are responsible for their own health problems. He also argues that state governments enjoy a net financial gain from the sale of cigarettes because smokers tend to die young, leaving state governments with lower nursing home and health-care costs. His most well-known book, "Smoke-filled rooms: a postmortem on the tobacco deal" (2002) describes his views in detail. An excellent critique of this book by Dr. Michael Cummings of the Roswell Park Cancer Institute, was published in Tobacco Control.
Examples of Viscusi’s work for the tobacco industry include:
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