May 12, 2015

Stanton A. Glantz, PhD

Tobacco documents reveal questionable professional recertification by industry menthol expert

Lorillard Tobacco's Jonathan Heck is one of the industry's leading experts on menthol, was appointed by the FDA to serve on it's Tobacco Products Scientific Committee, and is a primary author of the industry's submission to the FDA that argues that menthol is harmless.
 
Daniel Stevens and I just published a short paper in Tobacco Control's Industry Watch section pointing out that Heck used his employees to help him answer questions on his recertification exam as a toxicologist.  The official at the American Board of Toxicology who later said this was ok, Wallace Hayes, was a vice president at RJ Reynolds.
 
The FDA needs to do a better job of investigating the ethics of the people it puts on TPSAC.  It (and the courts) also has to consider such ethical breaches when deciding how much credence to give industry submissions in regulatory (and judicial) proceedings.
 
You can read the paper here.

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