Elisa Tong, MD, Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, UC San Francisco, 530 Parnassus, Suite 366, San Francisco, CA 94143, 415-885-7504, etong@itsa.ucsf.edu, Lucinda England, MD, Divison of Reproductive Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 4770 Buford Highway NE, MS K-23, Atlanta, GA 30341-3717, and Stanton A. Glantz, PhD, University of California, San Francisco, Center for Tobacco Control Research & Education, 530 Parnassus Ave., Suite 366, San Francisco, CA 94143-1390.

Objective and unbiased information is needed to understand the relationship between second hand smoke and health. The tobacco industry has used scientific consultants to attack the evidence that secondhand smoke (SHS) causes disease, most often lung cancer. Little is known about industry strategies to contest the evidence on maternal and child health. Tobacco industry documents were examined related to a review of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), published in 2001 and funded by Philip Morris Tobacco Company. PM recognized that SHS and maternal and child health issues could create a powerful force for smoke-free areas. In 1997, PM commissioned a consultant to write a review on all possible risk factors for SIDS. The draft originally concluded that prenatal and postnatal smoking exposures are both independent risk factors for SIDS. After comments and meetings with PM scientific executives, the consultant’s original conclusions on SHS were changed. The final paper emphasized prenatal maternal smoking effects and questioned whether postnatal parental smoking is an important risk factor for SIDS. The published disclosure of industry funding did not reveal PM’s extensive involvement. PM executives influenced their consultant to change his conclusion that SHS is a risk factor for SIDS. This suggests that accepting tobacco industry funds can disrupt the integrity of the scientific process. Clinicians, patients, and public health officials are most vulnerable to the changed conclusions of the SIDS review, as current SIDS campaigns do not emphasize protecting infants from secondhand smoke as a primary message.

Learning Objectives:

• To recognize the tobacco industry’s fear that maternal and child health issues can be a powerful force for smoke-free areas
• To understand how the tobacco industry attacks the scientific evidence that secondhand smoke causes disease
• To determine how a SIDS review funded by Philip Morris was altered to downplay secondhand smoke as a risk factor for SIDS

Keywords: Tobacco Industry, Infant Health

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.