Journals retract two papers because authors did not fully disclose tobacco industry funding through Foundation for a Smoke Free World

The recent National Academies of Science Engineering and Medicine workshop report Sponsor Influences on the Quality and Independence of Health Research highlighted the problem of industry obscuring its support of research by funneling the money through intermediaries. Two papers that were funded by Philip Morris International’s Foundation for a Smoke Free World have recently been retracted because the authors did not clearly disclose the tobacco industry funding for their papers, one by the European Respiratory Journal and the other by BMJ Open.

In both cases, the Philip Morris Money had been passed through two intermediaries: PMI gave the money to the Foundation for a Smoke Free World who then gave money to the organizations that financed the papers. These papers are additional examples of how FSFW serves industry efforts to undermine scientific results that do not support its position.

Here are the retraction notices:

Retraction: “Characteristics and risk factors for COVID-19 diagnosis and adverse outcomes in Mexico: an analysis of 89,756 laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases.” Theodoros V. Giannouchos, Roberto A. Sussman, José M. Mier, Konstantinos Poulas and Konstantinos Farsalinos. Eur Respir J 2020; in press.

Subsequent to this, and prior to publication of the version of record in an issue of the European Respiratory Journal, it was brought to the editors’ attention that two of the authors had failed to disclose potential conflicts of interest at the time of the manuscript’s submission: that is, one of the authors (José M. Mier) at the time had a current and ongoing role in providing consultancy to the tobacco industry on tobacco harm reduction; and another (Konstantinos Poulas) at the time was a principal investigator for the Greek NGO NOSMOKE, which has its base at Patras Science Park, a science and innovation hub that has received funding from the Foundation for a Smoke Free World (an organisation funded by the tobacco industry).

Retraction: “International randomised controlled trial evaluating metabolic syndrome in type 2 diabetic cigarette smokers following switching to combustion-free nicotine delivery systems: the DIASMOKE protocol” Arkadiusz Krysinski, Cristina Russo, Sarah John, Jonathan D Belsey, Davide Campagna, Pasquale Caponnetto, Lorina Vudu, Chong Wei Lim, Francesco Purrello, Maurizio Di Mauro, Farrukh Iqbal, David Fluck, Edward Franek, Riccardo Polosa, Pankaj Sharma, and the DIASMOKE collaborators

This article has been retracted by the journal and publisher following a post-publication review of the funding source. This paper is in breach of BMJ Open’s policy not to publish research that has been funded by the tobacco industry, and therefore we have retracted this paper.

Following a query raised post-publication, BMJ now understands that ECLAT SRL (the listed funder) receives sponsorship from the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World
which is a not for profit group supported and funded by the tobacco company, Philip Morris International. The authors added a disclaimer to the article, referring to Foundation for a Smoke Free World (FSFW) as the “grantor,” when the article was revised as part of the pre-publication peer- review process. The addition of this information and its significance was not specifically brought to the editor’s attention by the authors. Had this been done, the article would not have been published. BMJ Open’s Editorial Policy states that the journal will not consider for publication any study which has been partly or wholly funded by the tobacco industry.

The authors do not agree with the retraction, but given the clear breach of policy BMJ considers that there is no option but to withdraw the article. We thank a reader for bringing this case to our attention.