AMA Education & Research Foundation
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The American Medical Association allowed itself to be conned by the Tobacco Industry into a scam known as AMA-ERF They were gullible enough to believe that they could take the tobacco industry's money to run an Education and Research program into smoking and health, and not be compromised in any way.
The idea appears to have come from Rosser Reeves who ran a strategy company known as the Tiderock Corporation. Among the cancer groups:
- Daniel Horn of the American Cancer Society was against having any such arrangement with the devious and duplicitous tobacco industry.
- Kenneth Endicott who ran the National Cancer Institute was all for it.
It is not known whether this resulted from an overblown ego, or from terminal gullibility.
Documents & Timeline
1968 June 27 William Kloepfer of the Tobacco Institute has written to Rosser Reeves at the strategy company Tiderock Corp. This was about the collaboration between the tobacco industry and the AMA (known as AMA Education & Research Foundation or AMA-ERF). Tiderock appears to have been the one who proposed the idea of funding an AMA research program back in June, at a joint tobacco company meeting.
- Kloepfer and Reeves had met earlier this month to discuss the AMA-ERF and Tiderock had been commissioned for two activities.
1. The TI has decided that both a position paper and the advertising project are still needed. "However events in San Francisco last week have reduced the urgency of publication." This was concerning a release by the AMA-ERF of a report on joint research due on June 19.
- Daniel Horn of the American Cancer Society has been urging the AMA to withdraw the report.
- Leonard Schuman and Stanhope Baynes-Jones (both ex-Sur-Gen Advisory Committee members) agreed with Horn and were to take their objections to the trustees of the AMA.
- Kenneth Endicott (Director of the NCI) and Senator Clements (President of the TI) were proponents of the joint research idea. The Tobacco Institute saw the collaboration as defusing attacks on tobacco from HEW ... "It's a new ball game."
2. The Tobacco Institute wanted to have the ads and position paper cleared by their lawyers Shook Hardy & Bacon and ready for release.
Participants in the San Francisco meeting were:
AMA-ERF Committee as of June 1968 [2] | ||
---|---|---|
Tobacco Industry representatives -- Committee of Counsel | ||
Earle C Clements | Tobacco Institute | President Executive-Director/lobbyist |
Philip Grant | Lorillard Corp | Inhouse legal counsel |
Frederick P Haas | Liggett & Myers | General counsel |
Cyril Hetsko | American Tobacco | Inhouse legal counsel |
H Henry Ramm | RJ Reynolds | VP and General Counsel |
Paul D Smith | Philip Morris | General Counsel |
Addison Yeamans | Brown & Wlliamson | General Counsel |
Tobacco Research Council/CTR | ||
Richard J Bing MD | Wayne State Uni | CTR & AMA/ERF (cardiologist) |
McKeen Cattell MD | Cornell University | CTR (pharmacologist) |
Leon O Jacobson MD | University of Chicago | Chrm of the CTR SAB. physician |
Clarence C Little ScD | TIRC and CTR | Scientific Director |
Sheldon Sommers MD | Columbia University | CTR (next Scientific Dir.) pathologist |
National Institute of Health | ||
Francis R Abinant | National Inst of Allergy & Infectious Diseases | |
Carl G Baker MD | National Cancer Institute | Dir. of Etiology |
Kenneth Endicott MD | National Cancer Institute | Director Lung Cancer Task Force |
Paul Kotin MD | Nat. Environmental Health Science Center of HEW | (ex-TIRC SAB)/Lung Cancer Task Force |
Gardiner C McMillan MD | National Heart Instititute | ex-Tobacco Working Group of NCI |
Ian A Mitchell MD | National Cancer Institute | |
The AMA's Education Research Foundation (ERF) Committee | ||
Robert J Hasterlik MD | Uni of Chicago | Prof. Medicine |
John B Hickam MD | Indiana Uni | Prof. Medicine. Member SGAC |
Paul S Larson PhD | Med. College of Virginia | Chairman AMA-ERF |
Maurice H Seevers MD | Uni of Michigan | Prof Pharmacology.Member SGAC |
Ira Singer PhD | Am. Medical Assn | Sec of AMA committee. |
SGAC=Surgeon General's Advisory Committee on Smoking & Health SAB=Scientific Advisory Board.[3] |