Ten universities have been subpoenaed by the country’s largest tobacco companies to turn over all documents concerning their government-financed tobacco research since the 1940s, The New York Times reported late last month. Nine of the universities have objected, saying the demand is both overly broad and could compromise confidential research.
The subpoenas are the latest step in the tobacco industry’s long battle with the federal government. Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds, and the three other companies say they need such documents to defend themselves against a Justice Department lawsuit, filed in 1999, in which the government said cigarette companies had deliberately misled the public about the harmfulness of tobacco.
Harvard University, the Johns Hopkins University, New York University, North Carolina State University, four University of California campuses, the University of Arizona, and the University of Kentucky received the subpoenas late last year, according to the Times.
“They’re asking us to unearth potentially thousands and thousands of documents from studies conducted perhaps as long as 50 years ago,” said Dennis O’Shea, a spokesman for Johns Hopkins. “This is an extremely intrusive demand against institutions and people who are not parties to the lawsuit. Certainly it’s likely that many of the scientists involved are either long retired or dead. And further, there’s really no reason to believe that there’s anything in these documents, if they could even be found, that could add anything beyond what’s already published in the scientific literature.”
He added: “It’s hard to see this request by tobacco companies as anything other than harassment of scientists and their academic institutions.”
Harvard was asked to turn over all documents on more than 50 federally sponsored research projects, dating to 1960, as well as all information on “any study for any of the Harvard schools relating to tobacco, cigarettes, or smoking going back to the 1950s,” said Diane E. Lopez, a lawyer for the university.
Not only was the request “monumental and probably impossible to comply with,” she said, but it raised serious concerns about violating the confidentiality of research subjects.
In late December, at least one of the universities, Harvard, filed an objection under federal rules for third parties in a lawsuit. Now, Ms. Lopez said, the tobacco companies can either negotiate with the university or try to persuade a judge to force it to comply with the subpoena.
Selena Stevens, a spokeswoman for Kentucky, said complying with the request would be daunting and would infringe on faculty rights. Through its cooperative-extension service, the university has worked with tobacco farmers for decades. It also runs the Tobacco and Health Research Institute. Potentially, all of that work could fall under the scope of the subpoena, she said. “We’re talking about anything from notes to research reports to diaries to datebooks. So there’s just too much information. The request is just too broad to even try to comply.”
According to the Times, nine of the universities are refusing to hand over the documents unless ordered to do so by a judge. North Carolina State did allow the tobacco companies to look at a few documents dug up by its professors.
Debbie Griffith, associate vice chancellor for public affairs at North Carolina State, said the university had turned over the documents because they fell under the purview of the state open-records law. “None of them involved sensitive research data or proprietary information or anything confidential under state law,” she said. “And because we have a broad public-records law, there was really no academic-freedom issue.”
Tobacco-company lawyers denied that they were trying to harass anyone. “We don’t believe that the Justice Department’s suit has merit, but as long as it’s before us, we have to defend ourselves,” Jonathan Redgrave, a lawyer with Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue, one of the firms representing Reynolds, told the Times. The lawyers said old documents would prove that statements made by tobacco executives were “entirely reasonable,” given what scientists knew at the time, according to the newspaper.
In addition to Reynolds and Philip Morris, the tobacco companies named in the Justice Department’s lawsuit are Brown & Williamson, Lorillard, and the Liggett Group.
The Times reported that the tobacco companies said they were willing to negotiate over the documents, but that some universities were standing firm. At least one, Harvard, said that it had not heard from the companies since filing its objection.
http://chronicle.com Section: Research & Publishing Page: A15
