INDUSTRY-FUNDED RESEARCH AND CONFLICT-OF-INTEREST - AN ANALYSIS OF RESEARCH SPONSORED BY THE TOBACCO INDUSTRY THROUGH THE CENTER-FOR-INDOOR-AIR-RESEARCH

The Center for Indoor Air Research (CIAR) was created by three United States tobacco companies in 1988. Its stated mission is to fund high-q uality, objective research related to indoor air, including studies of environmental tobacco smoke (ETS). Because CIAR is financed by the to bacco industry and funds research related to tobacco, it fosters an in herent conflict of interest. We consider whether this conflict of inte rest has affected the content, quality, or use of research funded by C IAR. We hypothesize that the tobacco industry might be using CIAR to d evelop scientific data to support its position that ETS is not harmful to health. CIAR funds two types of projects: ''Peer-reviewed'' projec ts are awarded after peer review by a group of scientists, whereas ''s pecial-reviewed'' projects are awarded directly by tobacco industry ex ecutives. CIAR's special-reviewed projects are more likely than its pe er reviewed projects to be related to ETS, to support the tobacco indu stry position, and to be used by the industry to argue that smoking sh ould not be regulated in public places. Our findings suggest that the tobacco industry is funding special-reviewed projects through CIAR to develop scientific data that it can use in legislative and legal setti ngs. The industry maybe financing peer-reviewed projects through CIAR to enhance its credibility, to provide good publicity, and to divert a ttention from ETS as an indoor air pollutant. CIAR's stated mission of funding high-quality, objective research has been compromised by conf lict of interest, and at least some of CIAR's projects are being used to promote the tobacco industry's agenda.