RJR and the supression of research

This may be a little bit off topic for the list, but because it
deals with secrecy and information generated through research, I
thought that maybe you might be interested.

Late last night on CSPAN they rebroadcast a House sub-committee
hearing from last Thursday on cigarettes.  Two former RJR
scientists testified about the work they had done, which strongly
suggested that nicotine was highly addictive.  As many of you
might know, RJR management has always denied that anything in
cigarette smoke is addictive.  The two researchers testified that
top RJR management had been informed about their work, and the
picture they painted of the interactions between the science
people and management makes it pretty clear that RJR management
not only knew about the work, they understood and accepted it as
well.  The company's claims that nicotine is not addictive is
sort of hard to swallow given the fact that they were conducting
research which was intended to develop other analogue substances
which would look like nicotine to the neural receptors in the
brain, but which wouldn't put so much stress on the heart. 
Apparently, such substances were discovered, but the company
elected not to pursue further research.  This decision was made
in the face of over 150,000 deaths each year due to smoking
induced heart-attacks in the US alone.

The reason I'm writing about this here, on the CP list, is that
RJR suppressed the information.  The research itself was
conducted in a secretive manner (animals were moved into the
buildings under the cover of darkness, visitors were not allowed
in the facility, etc.).  What's more, the scientists involved
signed contracts which prevented them from disclosing their work
to anyone outside of the company.  Those contracts are not
unusual in the corporate world, but the researchers claimed that
it was highly unusual, unheard of even, for the company to bury
the information permanently.  According to the researchers, it is
considered legitimate to withhold information temporarily, in
order to establish a market ahead of competitors, or for other
market based reasons.  It is not considered to be legitimate to
use the contracts to suppress research because the company
doesn't like the results of it.

After the lab was closed by RJR, the scientists made attempts to
publish their work despite the contracts they had signed.  In
each instance, the journals and the scientists were threatened
with law suits, and the journals pulled the plug on the articles.

According to the testimony, the work done at RJR during this
period (ending in the early 80's) was cutting edge stuff that
didn't exist anywhere else.  Because RJR suppressed it, other
scientists didn't have the opportunity to follow up on it, and
millions of people had less information at their disposal when
they decided whether or not they ought to smoke.  Apparently much
of their work still has not been duplicated elsewhere.

All of this underscores, I think, the importance of the work
that's being done here, on the CP list.  It's important for
scientists, whistle blowers, or whoever, to be able to distribute
information widely and anonymously.  Who knows what might have
happened if these researchers had had a copy of PGP and a network
of remailers at their disposal?

Someone wrote anonymously:

[RJR supresses research]

| All of this underscores, I think, the importance of the work
| that's being done here, on the CP list.  It's important for
| scientists, whistle blowers, or whoever, to be able to distribute
| information widely and anonymously.  Who knows what might have
| happened if these researchers had had a copy of PGP and a network
| of remailers at their disposal?

	Possibly very little.  As your article pointed out, the data
was not widely distributed.  If an accusation came out like "nicotine
is really addictive, see the secret research being done at RJR" the
number of people who could have released that information is very
limited.  Access to the interesting data (the correlated statistics,
the write ups) was probably limited to a very small number of people.
After all, they were doing things like moving animals at night,
restricing access to the building, etc.  They probably had a short
list of those who knew what was going on.  They could have traced a
leak relatively quickly.

	Further, if the data did get out anonymously, why would anyone
believe it?  Its easy to get caught up in our neat toys, like PGP and
tacky tokens.  What would have happened if the scientists stuffed a
printout into an envelope and mailed it to the New York Times?  The
Times would have called RJR, who would have vigerously denied
everything.  They then would have tried to find the sender.

	Now if these scientists had the root password on an RJR
computer, and made a few interesting file systems world readable... :)


Adam

-- 
Adam Shostack 				       adam@bwh.harvard.edu

Politics.  From the greek "poly," meaning many, and ticks, a small,
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