A comment made by Ryan compelled me to write a follow up to my Know the enemy part 3 article.
Ryan:
We need to de-stigmatize Enstrom first. The problem is that he has been so viciously smeared, that even though he is 100% correct in what he says and perfectly legit, he is blacklisted thanks to the usual smear campaigns.
There is a very common misconception that the Enstrom/Kabat study was a tobacco funded study. This is a common smear tactic of the anti-smoker activist. Here are the facts.
“Funding: The American Cancer Society initiated CPS I in 1959, conducted follow up until 1972, and has maintained the original database. Extended follow up until 1997 was conducted at the University of California at Los Angeles with initial support from the Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program, a University of California research organisation funded by the Proposition 99 cigarette surtax. After continuing support from the Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program was denied, follow up through 1999 and data analysis were conducted at University of California at Los Angeles with support from the Center for Indoor Air Research, a 1988–99 research organisation that received funding primarily from US tobacco companies.”
If you look This was an “American Cancer Society” study for the most part and like the infamous WHO study they wanted it buried.
All of the research was done and all that was left was to be published. The Center for Indoor Air Research was ordered to be disbanded by the “tobacco settlement” and donated all of their money to the collage where Enstrom worked. and that is the so called link that they have.
Defending legitimate epidemiologic research: combating Lysenko pseudoscience
In Enstroms own words:
Although the study was partially funded by CIAR, it was not managed by either CIAR or Philip Morris. Indeed, CIAR assigned its entire award for the study to UCLA in 1999 just before CIAR was dissolved as a condition of the Master Settlement Agreement [105]. CIAR did not even exist when my study was being completed. The study was conducted and published without any influence from the tobacco industry.
Filed under: health issues | Tagged: Health, health issues, Politics, smoking, smoking ban
Didn’t CIAR believe it was funding research that would likely contradict the studies Stanton Glantz favors?
Actually they didn’t know what they were funding, They were dismantled by the 1998 tobacco settlement and gave what money they had to UCLA. It wasn’t targeted towards any particular study.
Marshall, you better check that one out.
The thing that bothers me is that, regardless of whether or not they did or did not know what they were funding, it doesn’t change the fact that they did not conduct, dictate or skew the study. In fact, all they did was help see an already well established study through to completion.
I don’t see how it is that anybody could disregard it for that reason unless they simply did not want the results to be acknowledged – in which case it should be easy to de-stigmatize the whole thing!
Ryan, I agree. But you have to careful with this one. The antismokers can really nail you if you get the details wrong.
From Michael Siegel
As I highlighted in The Rest of the Story, the American Cancer Society accused Dr. Enstrom of scientific misconduct, apparently because they did not like the conclusions of his study, because as it turns out, there were no grounds for an academic misconduct accusation and Enstrom was cleared by the University of California of all such charges.
In his article, Enstrom too sees an element of McCarthyism in his treatment by the tobacco control movement: “Being able to distinguish between real and implied scientific misconduct is important to the integrity of science in general and to the integrity of individual scientists in particular. Falsely accusing an honest scientist of scientific misconduct is just as wrong as scientific misconduct itself. Implying that an honest scientist has committed scientific misconduct because he has published unpopular findings or has used an unpopular funding source is wrong and falls under the category of “scientific McCarthyism” [4].”
As I argued in my blog post regarding the American Cancer Society’s attack on Enstrom, it appears that the ACS was using Dr. Enstrom as a fall guy for unfavorable research findings. There were no grounds for a scientific misconduct charge. It was a false accusation, and it was based solely on Enstrom’s having published unfavorable findings and using an unpopular funding source. It does, therefore, fall under the category of scientific McCarthyism.
http://tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.com/search?q=enstrom
What I find interesting is that StantonGlantz and Jonathan M. Samet weren’t put under the same scrutiny for their roles in the Faked EPA report.
Bill, have you checked through the documents at tobaccodocuments.org and looked at the correspondences between Enstrom and PM? It’s pretty clear cut what transpired… However, what’s a little thing like reality next to the slandering propaganda of anti-tobacco zealots?
The fact that Enstrom was cleared by UCLA after the ACS accused him of scientific fraud should also stand as testament to reality.
Bill,
If you look at the tobacco documents it does show that Entrom applied for several grants starting in 92, he never hid this fact. But when CIAR was disbanded they gave their entire grant to UCLA and there were no stipulations put on that money. Only part went to Enstrom. He freely admitted that it was partially funded with tobacco money. But what is important to remember is the study was over, he needed the money for publication, further if you go into the tobacco documents it was found that 1/4 of exsmokers were classified as non-smokers further skewing the results of studies used in reports at that time. But the real bottom line is that the American Cancer Society maintained the database until 1997 and yet they are the ones disputing the findings.
Two other really important studies, both not funded by Big Tobacco, using ACS CPS I & II data, found no link between lung cancer and ETS. Please check these out and publicize them. They really exonerate Enstrom and Kabat!
http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/jvh19a00/pdf
http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/sqg22d00/pdf
[...] Michael J. Thun was harshly critical of Enstrom/Kabat yet this study pretty much exonerates the Enstrom/Kabat study and shows that they were dead on. Here is the study itself. Possibly related posts: [...]