Scientists

Anti-Tobacco Researchers

[* Denotes documented RWJF funding]

RWJF: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is the biggest single shareholder in Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT) producer Johnson&Johnson and began its massive funding of tobacco control in the U.S. in 1991, the same year the FDA approved the nicotine patch as a prescription drug.

• Ahluwalia, Jasjit*

Dept of Preventive Medicine and Dept. of Internal Medicine, School of Medicine, University of Kansas, Kansas City. RWJF Generalist Physician Faculty Scholars Award and recipient of honoraria and grant support from Glaxo Wellcome (makers of Zyban), SmithKline Beecham (makers of Nicorette and Nicoderm) AND Johnson & Johnson’s McNeil Consumer Products (makers of Nicotrol and other cessation products). Chair of Nominations Committee for Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco [SRNT].

• Altman, David*

At Bowman Grey School of Medicine, Department of Public Health in Winston-Salem, NC. Served as a consultant and helped administer RWJF’s “Tobacco Policy Research & Evaluation Program.”

• Arno, Peter S.*

Associate Professor, Dept. of Epidemiology and Social Medicine, Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx. Listed in RWJF’s media guide for “Ethical, social and Public Health Implications of Regulating Tobacco,” which was a “study” of the tobacco industry’s influence in weakening anti-tobacco legislation and litigation (and even the 60 Minutes Wigand show). Arno’s study blames tobacco industry campaign funding.

• Benowitz, Neal

Prof. of medicine, UC San Francisco. A reviewer for Tobacco Control. A member discussion group chair for Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco [SRNT].

• Bero, Lisa*

Assistant Professor, Institute for Health Policy Studies, UC San Francisco. A colleague of and sometimes co-publisher with Stanton Glantz. Listed in RWJF media guide for “Quality of Research on Environmental Tobacco Smoke by Different Sponsors.”

Bero has been given substantial RWJF money for this project, the results of which were published in JAMA in l999. Basically the “study” says any studies conducted with tobacco funding are bad, but those conducted with other funding (ostensibly including pharmaceutical money from RWJF) are good. A reviewer for Tobacco Control.

• Biener, Lois*

Senior Research Fellow, University of Massachusetts at Boston Center for Survey Research, Boston MA. Listed as a media contact in RWJF’s guide for “Survey on Responses to the Massachusetts Tobacco Control Program.” The survey would, among other things, “determine the characteristics of smokers who are most responsive to media messages and to determine which segments of the population are most likely to adopt anti-tobacco stances.” Biener received $220,152 from RWJF for that “study.” She is a frequent RWJF grantee who often publishes journal articles with other RWJF grantees.

• Burns, David*

Prof. of Medicine, UC San Diego. Among RWJF-funded projects is an article on the tobacco settlement in Tobacco Control [“What Should Be the Elements of Any Settlement With the Tobacco Industry?” 6(1):1-4, l997] A former vice president of California Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation in l983 (along with Virginia Ernster) when co-founder Stanton Glantz was president of the organization, which later became Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights.

• Califano, Joseph*

President and founder of the Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse [CASA] at Columbia University, which has received primary and massive funding from RWJF. Califano was Jimmy Carter’s Secretary of Health, Education & Welfare, l977-79. An Honorary Board member of Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation.

• Chaloupka, Frank*

Assoc. Prof., economics dept., University of Illinois at Chicago; Faculty Research Fellow, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc., North Aurora, Illinois. Very heavily funded by RWJF and listed as media contact in RWJF guide for “Tobacco Prices, Restrictions, and Use Among Youth.” Chaloupka’ study, which was published by none other than the National Bureau of Economic Research, according to a 7/19/96 Tobacco-Free Kids press release for it, found that a 75-cent per pack increase in price would have cut overall youth smoking in half during the l992-l994 Monitoring the Future Youth Survey years. Wherever there is talk of raising tobacco and alcohol taxes, there is Frank Chaloupka to generate the figures.

Chaloupka is a scientific core group member of RWJF’s Research Network on the Etiology of Tobacco Dependence [TERN]. He also wrote Chp. 6 [“Economic Interventions”] for the l998 S.G.’s report, “The Context for Change: The Efficacy of Interventions for Smoking Prevention and Control,” and “Effect of Tobacco Taxation” for the l994 S.G.’s report. Chaloupka has received funding not only from RWJF, but also from the NCI (for the ASSIST program and other tobacco control projects), from NIDA, from SAMHA, from the CDC, from the ACS, and from the ALA. The Monitoring the Future Youth Survey (on tobacco, alcohol and drug use) is funded by RWJF. He lists himself as a consultant to the World Bank’s Human Development Department (l997- ), the American Cancer Society’s Tobacco Tax Policy Project (l996 - ), the National Cancer Institute (1991- ), the RWJF (l993 - ), Audits & Surveys (l993 - ), the CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health (l993 - ) and the EPA, Indoor Air Division (l994-95).

With Kenneth Warner and others, he wrote “Criteria for Determining an Optimal Cigarette Tax,” published in Tobacco Control in l995 [Vol. 4, No. 4, pp. 380-386]. He is also a

Reviewer for and Associate Editor of (“Economics of tobacco use, tobacco related disease, and tobacco control”) Tobacco Control, and he is a member of the Illinois Coalition Against Tobacco, (coalition of ACS, ALA, AHA and others) which received a RWJF grant of $1 million in l994.

• Clayton, Richard*

Director, Center for Prevention Research, University of Kentucky. Program Director for RWJF’s Research Network on the Etiology of Tobacco Dependence. Network chair of RWJF’s TERN [Tobacco Etiology Research Network]. Clayton has suggested that schools go beyond health messages to “environmental strategies.” “For instance, he says, principals could pretend the faculty restrooms are broken, and force teachers to share the students’ restrooms, which would mean fewer kids sneaking in there to smoke” [“The Rehooked Generation: How Do We Help Them Stop?”, by David Ansley, onhealth.com, 11/19/98]

• Cummings, K. Michael*

Sr. Research Scientist, Dept. of Cancer Control & Epidemiology, Roswell Park Cancer Institute, Buffalo NY. Also “Research Scientist” with Health Research, Inc. of Buffalo. Listed in RWJF’s media guide for his “Assessment of the Effects of New York City’s Smoke-Free Restaurant Law on Sales and Consumer Attitudes and Behavior,” which would study tax receipt data to determine the economic impact of the ban and would conduct a survey to gauge consumers’ and restaurant owners’ response to the law and determine steps needed for them to comply with the law. Results were expected in l998. Cummings received $183,133 from RWJF for this “study.”

Cummings is heavily funded by RWJF and has even co-authored an article with RWJF’s C. Tracy Orleans, which was published in the Nov/Dec l999 issue of the American Journal of Health Promotion. The article focused heavily on cessation treatments and products and advocated more research on cessation as well as continued tobacco tax increases, counter advertising, and anti-tobacco “advocacy” (lobbying). Cummings, has written the same message before (i.e. in his RWJF-funded “Environmental and Policy Influences on Tobacco Use,” published in the Winter l998 issue of Tobacco Control, for which he got a cool $126,593 from RWJF).

• Curry, Susan J*

Scientific Investigator, Center for Health Studies, Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound, WA. The cooperative has received RWJF funding for “studying” tobacco cessation/control in HMOs. She is listed in the RWJF media guide for her project to examine the cost-effectiveness for HMOs to cover the cost of cessation programs [“Impact of Co-Payments on Use of Smoking Cessation Services in an HMO”].