Tobacco industry research no longer welcome in UK medical journals

Saturday, October 26, 2013 by: PF Louis
Tags: tobacco industry, medical journals, junk science

(NaturalNews) It's amazing that research funded by the tobacco industry was ever accepted and published by medical journals. But evidently, it's been going on for some time. The research bought and paid for mostly focuses on attempting to debunk concerns about second hand smoke.

According to the Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, The CIAR (Center for Indoor Air Research) was created by three United States tobacco companies in 1988 posing as an information group supporting "objective research" for environmental tobacco smoke (ETS). [1]

The idea is to create scientific legitimacy by having research papers published in established medical journals, which tend to influence medical professionals and get picked up by medical or scientific publications and even sections of mainstream magazines or newspapers devoted to either field.

That way bogus research papers crowned with authoritative legitimacy by major medical journals gain credence publicly. Foundations and front groups are established to make it appear the buck stopped there instead of coming from within the industry.

Just recently, the British Medical Journal (BMJ) and its family of journals followed the precedent set by U.S. based Public Library of Science publications PLoS Medicine, PLoS One, and PLoS Biology that had already refused to publish studies paid for by tobacco companies.

The BMJ did it with a flourish, announcing the cigarette industry has "used research to deliberately produce ignorance and to advance its ultimate goal of selling its deadly products, while shoring up its damaged legitimacy."

But by this time, the CIAR had managed to blow some smoke into the UK second hand smoke debate for years. [2]

But research funding sources can be even more complicated with sock puppet posers paid to shill vaccines or vilify vaccination doubters.

Most journals still don't mind publishing research papers funded by the vaccine industry

Remember the tragic UK case that resulted in vaccine distortions and lies and medical licenses taken from honorable doctors?

The attack hack for hire Brian Deer, The London Times, and the BMJ conspired with a vicious, slanderous attack on Dr. Andrew Wakefield's earlier journal published study on the observed gastrointestinal adverse effects of children who were MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccinated.

The libelous allegations against Wakefield were so well "legitimized" by the BMJ and publicized by Murdoch's media empire that it still stands as a valid talking point against vaccine dangers today.

According to the Age of Autism newsletter, after the totally false case against Wakefield began unraveling, BMJ editor-in-chief Fiona Godlee and her editorial staff made a flimsy "it didn't occur to us" apology for failing to disclose financial and PR links with MMR vaccine manufacturers Merck and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) [3]

The BMJ made no efforts to publicly and completely right the Wakefield controversy. Nor did they completely uncover and publicly disclose Brian Deer's role as a hired journalist hit man, and that his London Times articles were Murdoch publications, and the Murdoch family possess major financial holdings in GSK.

Fiona glossed over the fact that complaints against Wakefield by the UK's medical authority, the General Medical Council (GMC), were generated by hack hit man Brian Deer while using a PR-media information front group of Merck that's shared with GSK. [4]

Plos Medicine announced in 2010 that the BMJ and other major influential medical journals in the UK and USA publish studies funded by Big Pharma. [5]

Big Pharma's vaccine industry has the pressing mission of defusing vaccination controversies by lying, cheating, and attacking doctors who stray from the holy dogma of vaccination.

Dumping the tobacco industry is easy. They can't muster the illusion of medical merit that sustains an unhealthy alliance between medical journals and Big Pharma's vaccine industry.

Sources for this article include:

[1] http://jhppl.dukejournals.org/content/21/3/515.abstract

[2] http://www.independent.co.uk

[3] http://www.ageofautism.com

[4] http://www.ageofautism.com/2011/02/mercks-medical-media-empire.html

[5] http://anthraxvaccine.blogspot.com