A study in October 2006 shook the cancer world by finding that 80 per cent of lung cancer deaths could be prevented by widespread use of CT scans. But who paid for that study?
The study by Dr. Claudia Henschke of Weill Cornell Medical College was published in the The New England Journal of Medicine. The small print at the end of the study noted that part of the study was financed by a little-known charity called the Foundation for Lung Cancer: Early Detection, Prevention & Treatment.
The New York Times conducted a review of tax records and found that the foundation was underwritten almost entirely by $3.6 million in grants from the parent company of the Liggett Group, maker of Liggett Select, Eve, Grand Prix, Quest and Pyramid cigarette brands.
Four grants were received by the foundation from the Vector Group, Liggett's parent, between 2000 and 2003.
The editor in chief of the medical journal, Dr. Jeffrey M. Drazen, said that he was surprised. Drazen said
"In the seven years that I've been here, we have never knowingly published anything supported by" a cigarette maker."
There are increasing numbers of universities that will no longer accept grants from cigarette makers as awareness grows of the influence companies can have on the outcome of the research. Nearly all medical journals and associations now demand that researches accurately disclose the sources that are financing their studies.
The foundation president was Dr. Henschke, with Dr. David Yankelevitz her longtime collaborator was its secretary-treasurer. The directors were Dr. Antonio Gotto, dean of Weill Cornell, and Arthur J. Mahon, vice chairman of the college board of overseers.
On Dec.4, 2000, Vector did issue a press release stating that it was intending to give $2.4 million to Weill Cornell to finance Dr. Henschke’s research. There were articles in Business Week and USA Today that did mention the gift. But there was no mention of the foundation that had been so quickly started that its 2000 tax return stated “not yet organized.”
A Vector spokesman, Paul Caminiti, did confirm that over a three year period the company did donate $3.6 million to the foundation.
He did say the company “had no control or influence over the research.”
Prominent cancer researchers and journal editors, told of the foundation by The Times, said they were stunned to learn of Dr. Henschke’s association with Liggett. Cigarette makers are so reviled among cancer advocates and researchers that any association with the industry can taint researchers and bar their work from being published.
"If you're using blood money, you need to tell people you're using blood money," said Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society. The society gave Henschke more than $100,000 in grants between 2004 and 2007, money it would not have provided had it known of Liggett's grants, Brawley said.
Henschke and Yankelevitz said in an e-mail message "it seems clear that you are trying to suggest that Cornell was trying to conceal this gift, which is entirely false."
They wrote that the Vector grant was only a small part of the overall cost of the study. They wrote "The gift was announced publicly, the advocacy and public health community knew about it, it is quite easy to look it up on the Internet, its board has independent Cornell faculty on it, and it was fully disclosed to grant funding organizations."
They also said that they no longer accept grants from tobacco companies.
Henschke was quoted as saying in the Vector press release that, thanks to the Vector grants,
"we have raised the initial funding needed to support this important research and data collection on the effectiveness of spiral CT screening."
According to Dr.Gotto, Henschke, Yankelevitz and another of their colleagues had set up the foundation without the university's approval. He said that the faculty are allowed to do so. He and Mahon did join the board some weeks or months after it had been created to ensure that the Vector grants were handled appropriately, he said
Gotto said,
"If we had been approached, we would not have set up the foundation"we would have accepted the gift directly. We think we behaved honorably. There was no attempt to set up a foundation to hide tobacco money."
A former editor of The New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Jerome Kassirer, is also the author of a book that deals with conflicts of interest, he said he believes the Weill Cornell had created the foundation to hide its receipt of money from a cigarette company. Kassirer said,
"You have to ask yourself the question, 'Why did the tobacco company want to support her research?' "They want to show that lung cancer is not so bad as everybody thinks because screening can save people; and that's outrageous.
Even though Henschke's work is controversial among cancer researchers, it is being embraced by many lung-cancer advocacy organizations. Some have pushed for legislation in California, New York and Massachusetts to create trust funds to pay for lung cancer screening. Even though the language is oven tailored to benefit Henschke's group.
But now that it has been revealed that Henschke's work was underwritten in part by grants from a cigarette maker will undercut those efforts, several prominent cancer researchers have spoken out.
"She's the biggest advocate for widespread spiral CT screening," said Dr. Paul Bunn, a lung cancer expert and executive director of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer. "And now her research is tainted."
