[Ip-health] Cigarette Company Paid for Lung Cancer Study

[Joana Ramos]

Not only was the source of funding for the research obscured, but an IP
conflict of interest was not disclosed;

<snip>
> The Cancer Letter, a newsletter, recently reported that Drs. Henschke
> and Yankelevitz had failed to disclose in articles and educational
> lectures a patent and 10 pending patents related to CT screening and
> follow-up. General Electric, a maker of CT scanners, licensed the
> issued patent beginning in 2001.
>
Below are excerpts from the article.

Joana

------------ original article----------------
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/26/health/research/26lung.html?th&emc=3Dth

March 26, 2008
Cigarette Company Paid for Lung Cancer Study
By GARDINER HARRIS
NY Times

In October 2006, Dr. Claudia Henschke of Weill Cornell Medical College
jolted the cancer world with a study saying that 80 percent of lung
cancer deaths could be prevented through widespread use of CT scans.

Small print at the end of the study, published in The New England
Journal of Medicine, noted that it had been financed in part by a
little-known charity called the Foundation for Lung Cancer: Early
Detection, Prevention & Treatment. A review of tax records by The New
York Times shows 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.

The foundation got four grants from the Vector Group, Liggett=92s parent,
from 2000 to 2003.

Dr. Jeffrey M. Drazen, editor in chief of the medical journal, said he
was surprised. =93In the seven years that I=92ve been here, we have never
knowingly published anything supported by=94 a cigarette maker, Dr. Drazen
said.

An increasing number of universities do not accept grants from cigarette
makers, and a growing awareness of the influence that companies can have
over research outcomes, even when donations are at arm=92s length, has led
nearly all medical journals and associations to demand that researchers
accurately disclose financing sources.

Dr. Henschke was the foundation president, and her longtime
collaborator, Dr. David Yankelevitz, was its secretary-treasurer. Dr.
Antonio Gotto, dean of Weill Cornell, and Arthur J. Mahon, vice chairman
of the college board of overseers, were directors.

Vector issued a press release on Dec. 4, 2000, saying that it intended
to give $2.4 million to Weill Cornell to finance Dr. Henschke=92s
research. Articles in Business Week and USA Today mentioned the gift. No
mention was made of the foundation, begun so hastily that its 2000 tax
return stated =93not yet organized.=94 .....

<snip>

Days earlier, Andrew Ben Ami, assistant secretary of the foundation,
said in an interview he would not disclose the source of the charity=92s
financing at the request of the university.

In another interview before Dr. Gotto agreed to speak, Mr. Mahon,
another foundation director, said he did not know the source of the funds.

Dr. Robert C. Young, chancellor of the Fox Chase Cancer Center in
Philadelphia and chairman of the Board of Scientific Advisors of the
National Cancer Institute, said he had never heard of the Vector grants.
=93As someone who really hung around the inner sanctum of cancer research,
I have never heard anybody =97 anybody =97 ever say anything about this,=94
Dr. Young said.

Dr. Jerome Kassirer, a former editor of The New England Journal of
Medicine and the author of a book about conflicts of interest, said he
believed that Weill Cornell had created the foundation to hide its
receipt of money from a cigarette company. =93You have to ask yourself the
question, =91Why did the tobacco company want to support her research?=92 =
=94
Dr. Kassirer said. =93They want to show that lung cancer is not so bad as
everybody thinks because screening can save people; and that=92s outrageous=
.=94

Dr. Henschke=92s work, while controversial among cancer researchers, has
been embraced by many lung-cancer advocacy organizations, which have
pushed for legislation in California, New York and Massachusetts to
create trust funds to pay for lung cancer screening =97 often with
language tailored to benefit Dr. Henschke=92s group.

In New York, a bill would create a $10 million fund =93to carry out lung
cancer early detection research using computer tomography (CT) scanning=94
at a place =93that was established by the multi-institutional,
multi-disciplinary research program that began at 22 sites in the state
in the year 1991,=94 a description that could only fit Dr. Henschke=92s gro=
up.

But the disclosure that Dr. Henschke=92s work was in part underwritten by
grants from a cigarette maker will undercut those efforts, prominent
cancer researchers said.

=93She=92s the biggest advocate for widespread spiral CT screening,=94 said
Dr. Paul Bunn, a lung cancer expert and executive director of the
International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer. =93And now her
research is tainted.=94

Corporate financing can have subtle effects on research and lead to
unconscious bias. Studies have shown that sponsored research tends to
reach conclusions that favor the sponsor, which is why disclosure is
encouraged. The tobacco industry has a long history of underwriting
research =97 sometimes through independent-sounding foundations =97 to make
cigarettes seem less dangerous.

Since 1999, Dr. Henschke has asserted that annual CT scans of smokers
and former smokers would detect lung cancer when tumors are small enough
to be cured, preventing as many as 80 percent of the 160,000 deaths a
year from lung cancer, by far the biggest cause of cancer deaths in the
United States.

Her 2006 study said that, after screening 31,567 people from seven
countries, CT scans uncovered 484 lung cancers, 412 of them at a very
early stage. Three years later, most of those patients were still alive,
and she projected that 80 percent would be alive after 10 years and
assumed that they would have died without the screens.

Critics question both her survival projections and her assumption that
all would have died without screening. Indeed, most in the cancer
establishment say that Dr. Henschke has yet to prove her case. CT scans
have radiation risks and sometimes detect cancers that would not have
progressed, leading to risky procedures like biopsies and lung surgery
when not needed.

To settle the dispute, the National Cancer Institute started in 2002 the
$200 million National Lung Screening Trial comparing death rates among
55,000 people randomly assigned to have CT scans or chest X-rays.
Results are not expected until 2010. Dr. Henschke has asserted that
allowing hundreds of thousands of people to die in the meantime is
unethical.

The Cancer Letter, a newsletter, recently reported that Drs. Henschke
and Yankelevitz had failed to disclose in articles and educational
lectures a patent and 10 pending patents related to CT screening and
follow-up. General Electric, a maker of CT scanners, licensed the issued
patent beginning in 2001..............

----------------

Joana Ramos, MSW
Cancer Resources & Advocacy
Seattle WA USA
+1-206-229-2420
http://ramoslink.info/
www.bmtbasics.org