You are here

  • Home
  • Online First
  • Tobacco industry influence on breast cancer research, policy and public opinion: scoping the Truth Tobacco Industry Documents

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
Original research
Tobacco industry influence on breast cancer research, policy and public opinion: scoping the Truth Tobacco Industry Documents
  1. Eileen Han1,2,
  2. Eric Crosbie3,4,
  3. Pamela Ling1,2,
  4. Sara Perez3,
  5. Huma Khan3,
  6. Robert Hiatt5,
  7. Cristin Kearns6
  1. 1Division of General Internal Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA
  2. 2Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA
  3. 3School of Public Health, University of Nevada, Reno, NV, USA
  4. 4Ozmen Institute for Global Studies, University of Nevada, Reno, Reno, NV, USA
  5. 5Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics, Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA
  6. 6Preventive and Restorative Dental Sciences and Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA
  1. Correspondence to Dr Cristin Kearns; cristin.kearns{at}ucsf.edu

Abstract

Objective Over the last 35 years, there has been growing evidence suggesting a relationship between tobacco use and breast cancer. The tobacco industry’s role in shaping research, policy and public opinion about the relationship is unknown. This study’s objective is to determine if the tobacco industry-funded Council for Tobacco Research (CTR) Records and the Tobacco Institute (TI) Records, housed in the Truth Tobacco Industry Document Archive, contain documents related to internal research about breast cancer and strategies to influence the science and public opinion about breast cancer causes.

Methods We applied the situational scoping method, in which community advocates and university researchers collaborate, to (1) identify external events considered by CTR or TI as a threat or opportunity to business interests; (2) select events for further analysis and (3) conduct social worlds/arenas mapping of industry responses to selected events.

Results The CTR and TI Records contained 19 719 documents with the search term ‘breast cancer’ ranging from the 1950s to 1998. We analysed nine events relevant to the aim of this research. CTR and TI responded to external threats, pointing out methodological problems in studies they perceived as threatening, or characterising lung cancer as misdiagnosed or metastasised breast cancer. They responded to external opportunities with promoting and funding research focusing on smoking’s ‘protective effects’ over breast cancer, and breast cancer’s genetic, hormonal and dietary causes.

Conclusion The CTR and TI Records are a rich source of documents related to tobacco industry efforts to influence breast cancer research, policy and public opinion away from any aetiologic relationship between tobacco use and breast cancer.

  • Tobacco industry documents
  • Secondhand smoke
  • Tobacco industry
  • Carcinogens

Data availability statement

Data are available upon reasonable request.

https://doi.org/10.1136/tc-2024-058724

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    Data availability statement

    Data are available upon reasonable request.

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Contributors EH, EC, PL and CK conceived of the idea of this paper together. EH conducted the initial data collection, research, analysis, and drafting. EC, SP, HK and RH contributed to data collection, research and analysis. CK and PL provided substantive review, comment and revision support to the initial and revised manuscripts. CK is the guarantor for the work.

    • Funding This work was supported by the California Breast Cancer Research Program (grant-B27NN42363), the National Institute of Dental & Craniofacial Research (grantK08DE028947), the Samuel Lawrence Foundation and discretionary funds from the UCSF Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education.

    • Disclaimer The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the funding agencies.

    • Competing interests No, there are no competing interests.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer-reviewed.

    • Supplemental material This content has been supplied by the author(s). It has not been vetted by BMJ Publishing Group Limited (BMJ) and may not have been peer-reviewed. Any opinions or recommendations discussed are solely those of the author(s) and are not endorsed by BMJ. BMJ disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on the content. Where the content includes any translated material, BMJ does not warrant the accuracy and reliability of the translations (including but not limited to local regulations, clinical guidelines, terminology, drug names and drug dosages), and is not responsible for any error and/or omissions arising from translation and adaptation or otherwise.