Big Tobacco and the human genome: driving the scientific bandwagon?

Abstract

The tobacco industry first began to promote the idea that a minority of smokers are

McCarthyism, conflict of interest andAddiction's new transparency declaration procedures

“…A growing number of studies (ironically made possible in part by COI declaration policies instituted by the major biomedical journals) have found troubling correlations between financial relationships with industry and problems with research, including a tendency for funding sources to influence study design and hypothesis formulation. Industry funding increases the likelihood that researchers will produce pro‐industry conclusions, publish biased interpretations of trial results and even suppress the publication of negative findings .…”

“…In the addiction field, Wallace reported that interpretative bias played a role in the research funded by the tobacco industry claiming a genetic predisposition to lung cancer, and that studies tended to overestimate genetic risk. Barnes & Bero found that review papers funded by the tobacco industry are 88 times more likely than non‐industry‐funded studies to conclude that passive smoke is not harmful to health.…”