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Introduction
In the United States and other western countries, 1-6 Thailand 7 and China, 8 the private transnational tobacco companies have a long record, dating back to the 1950s, of sponsoring research in universities and similar institutions to create controversy about the dangers of smoking and secondhand smoke and the need for tobacco control policies in order to protect industry markets and profits. The academic research and the network of scientists, physicians and other academics they built in the process played an important role behind this effort. 1-6 This pattern of behaviour was a central element in the ruling, upheld on appeal, of a US federal judge that the major cigarette companies and their research organizations violated the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organization Act. 9 (The tobacco industry defendents appealed to the US Supreme Court in February 2010; the Supreme Court denied the appeal and allowed the ruling to stand, making it final.) This pattern of manipulation of science has led many academic institutions to adopt policies of declining funding from the tobacco industry 6 10 11 and some funding agencies to adopt policies of not awarding grants to institutions that accept tobacco industry funding. 12
The multinational tobacco companies used similar strategies in Hong Kong in the late 1980s and 1990s, including attempts to involve scientists from China. 13 As part of its strategies to fight smoke-free legislation in Asia, in 1996 Philip Morris reached out to the state tobacco monopolies in Asia, including the China National Tobacco Company (CNTC), to establish the Asian Regional Tobacco Industry Science Team (ARTIST), which later developed into an industry organization of scientific representatives. 14 Many researchers from CNTC were involved in ARTIST as well as researchers from Chinese academic institutions, including communication on developing 'safer' cigarettes. 15 16
Despite the fact that China is the world's largest tobacco market and home to the largest tobacco company, the CNTC, little is known about the relationship between CNTC and university and other academic researchers. CNTC is by far the dominant tobacco company in China, controlling 99.9% of the domestic cigarette market in 2000. 17 CNTC is part of the central government as the State Tobacco Monopoly Agency (STMA). Under the umbrella corporation of CNTC, each province and many cities and...