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Japan Tobacco's Corruption of Science and Health Policy Via the Smoking

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TC Online First, published on March 1, 2018 as 10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2017-053971 Research paper Tob Control: first published as 10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2017-053971 on 4 February 2018. Downloaded from ‘The industry must be inconspicuous’: Japan Tobacco’s corruption of science and health policy via the Smoking Research Foundation Kaori Iida,1 Robert N Proctor2 ► Additional material is ABStract to promote bun-en (“separate-smoking” spaces) published online only. To view Objective To investigate how and why Japan Tobacco, and we need to improve “smokers’ manners” to please visit the journal online “realise a harmonious society”.8 (http:// dx. doi. org/ 10. 1136/ Inc. (JT) in 1986 established the Smoking Research tobaccocontrol- 2017- 053971). Foundation (SRF), a research-funding institution, and to JT has long worked to characterise public explore the extent to which SRF has influenced science smoking as a problem not of public health, but 1Department of Evolutionary and health policy in Japan. rather of civility, tolerance and manners.9–11 This Studies of Biosystems, Methods We analysed documents in the Truth Tobacco effort has been remarkably successful. While Japan SOKENDAI (The Graduate University for Advanced Industry Documents archive, along with recent Japanese has seen some limits on public smoking in recent Studies), Hayama, Japan litigation documents and published documents. years (especially after the 2002 Health Promotion 2Department of History, Results JT’s effort to combat effective tobacco Act12 13), the nation’s tobacco control remains weak Stanford University, Stanford, control was strengthened in the mid-1980s, following by international standards. As of September 2017, California, USA privatisation of the company. While remaining under only two prefectures (Kanagawa and Hyogo) and the protection of Japan’s Ministry of Finance, the one city (Bibai in Hokkaido) have adopted ordi- Correspondence to Kaori Iida, Department of semiprivatised company lost its ’access to politicos’, nances to prevent ‘passive smoking’, and these are 11 14–18 Evolutionary Studies of opening up a perceived need for collaboration with not strong policies. In the 2017 MPOWER Biosystems, SOKENDAI (The global cigarette makers. One solution, arrived at through measures by the WHO, Japan received the lowest Graduate University for clandestine planning with American companies, was to score on multiple components, including ‘P’ Advanced Studies), Hayama, 19 Kanagawa 240-0193, Japan; establish a third-party organisation, SRF, with the hope (‘Protect people from tobacco smoke’). iida_ kaori@ soken. ac. jp of capturing scientific and medical authority for the The success of Japanese cigarette makers in industry. Guarded by powerful people in government blocking effective tobacco control must be under- copyright. Received 31 July 2017 and academia, SRF was launched with the covert goal of stood as a result of the industry’s capture of large Revised 15 December 2017 influencing tobacco policy both inside and outside Japan. portions of the Japanese medical and scientific Accepted 19 December 2017 Scholars funded by SRF have participated in international establishment. Here we show that the main instru- conferences, national advisory committees and tobacco ment deployed for that purpose has been the litigation, in most instances helping the industry to Smoking Research Foundation (SRF; 喫煙科学研究 maintain a favourable climate for the continued sale of 財団), established under protection of the Japanese cigarettes. Ministry of Finance (MOF) in 1986. Conclusions Contrary to industry claims, SRF was never According to SRF’s first annual report, its purpose http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/ meant to be independent or neutral. With active support was to subsidise ‘scientific researches on smoking… from foreign cigarette manufacturers, SRF represents the and thereby contribute to the deliberation of expansion into Asia of the denialist campaign that began national policies regarding the tobacco industry’.20 in the USA in 1953. As explained in the subscription list detailing initial sponsors (shutsuen kigyō), JT’s contribution was nearly 90% of the total 1130 million yen, far exceeding contributions from all other sponsors, INTRODUCTION including the Cancer Institute of the Japanese Foun- In September 2014, the Tokyo High Court upheld dation for Cancer Research, Japan’s oldest cancer Japan Tobacco’s (JT) view that there is no scientific research facility.20 Numerous tobacco-related enti- consensus that secondhand smoke causes cancer ties also contributed, including trucking companies, on September 26, 2021 by guest. Protected and other life-threatening maladies. The court growers’ and retailers’ associations, manufacturers based this decision on articles published by indus- of flavourants and filter materials and firms from try-financed researchers (eg, James Enstrom and the chemical, pharmaceutical and paper indus- Geoffrey Kabat), articles already discredited outside tries.20 JT provided an additional 300 million yen Japan.1–4 As of 20 September 2017, JT’s website for research grants, with comparable contributions states that ‘a statistical relation between expo- ever since.20 21 ► http:// dx. doi. org/ 10.1136/ sure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) and SRF remains active in Japan and still funds tobaccocontrol- 2017- 054148 the increase of disease incidence in non-smokers ‘smoking and health’ (kitsuen to kenkō) research: has not been proven’, referencing the discredited 387 million yen in fiscal year 2015, for example.22 Enstrom and Kabat study and a controversial IARC While JT has been emphasising SRF’s ‘indepen- study from 1998.2 5–7 In May of 2016, when the dence and neutrality’,23 critics have questioned its To cite: Iida K, Proctor RN. 9 11 24 Tob Control Epub ahead of Japanese Ministry of Health estimated the number role in defending cigarettes. SRF scholars are print: [please include Day of deaths in Japan from exposure to secondhand known to have served as members of the Tobacco Month Year]. doi:10.1136/ smoke at 15 000 per year, JT responded with the Business Council (TBC) and as expert witnesses for tobaccocontrol-2017-053971 industry mantra: we need more research, we need the defense in cigarette litigation.25 26 We also know Iida K, Proctor RN. Tob Control 2018;0:1–9. doi:10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2017-053971 1 Copyright Article author (or their employer) 2018. Produced by BMJ Publishing Group Ltd under licence. Research paper Tob Control: first published as 10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2017-053971 on 4 February 2018. Downloaded from from internal documents that JT sent SRF researchers and (at revenues’. Legally, Japan Tobacco remained under the super- least planned to send) money (2–3 million yen) to influence the vision of the MOF, where it remains today. The government Sixth World Conference on Smoking and Health in Tokyo in initially retained all stock in the company; the retained propor- 1987.25 27 The Japanese politician Shigefumi Matsuzawa in 2012 tion of shares decreased to 80% in 1994, 50% in 2004 and 33% characterised SRF as ‘a think tank of JT, by JT, and for JT’.28 in 2013. Japan’s Society for Tobacco Control (kin-en gakkai) has publicly Even with governmental protection, however, the newly priva- criticised SRF and called for its dissolution.29 Such critical voices tised company faced several challenges, including loss of access are rare, however, because few details of its origin and influence to key political resources and influence. It also came under pres- have been published. sure from foreign manufacturers hoping to enter Japan’s newly opened markets.32–35 Philip Morris (PM) in particular wanted to METHODS make sure Japanese cigarette makers adopted the global denialist 25 We searched the Truth Tobacco Industry Documents archive campaign. ( http s://www. industrydocumentslibrary. u csf. edu / tobacco/) for In January 1986, for example, Matthew Winokur, a PM Asia documents related to the Smoking Research Foundation, using executive who rose to become director of PM International (PMI) terms such as ‘JT’, ‘JTI’, ‘Japan Tobacco’, ‘SRF’, ‘TIOJ’, ‘Tobacco Corporate Affairs, visited Japan ‘to work with the JTI [Japan 21 Business Council’, ‘TBC’, ‘MHW’ and ‘MOF’. After identifying Tobacco, Inc.] to deal with smoking and health’. Winokur met key persons and institutions, we used names for further searches, with Yoshiharu Shimizu, head of JT’s Smoking and Health Infor- along with snowball methods and consultation of litigation docu- mation Department, who explained to him that ‘now that the ments and published literature. We also translated the present JTI is private, it no longer has the direct and automatic access to text into Japanese (see online supplementary text). politicos that it once had’; JT thus ‘needs the help of the foreign 21 NB: Japan Tobacco has undergone several name changes over manufacturers in fighting the A/S [anti-smoking] movement’. the course of the past century. With privatisation in 1985, for PM welcomed this new collaboration, recognising that Japanese example, the Japan Tobacco and Salt Public Corporation (JTS) cooperation was needed to defend the global industry against became Japan Tobacco, Inc. (JT). JT International is currently efforts to establish clean indoor air laws. This was particularly known as JTI, but in the period examined here, foreign compa- important after Takeshi Hirayama’s 1981 paper showing that the nies often referred to JT Inc. as JTI. We shall be using the acro- non-smoking wives of smoking
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