Sergio de Tezanos-Pinto
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Dr Sergio de Tezanos-Pinto was enlisted by the law firm Covington & Burling into a small group of Latin American academics and medical specialist who were willing to act under cover for the tobacco industry in their own countries. They were called "ETS Consultants" but they were actually enlisted as lobbyists -- they had no consulting role with the tobacco companies whatsoever. He was already closely associated with the tobacco industry, and the lawyer's report on him reveals this propaganda emphasis:
Dr Sergio de Tezanos-Pinto. (Chile)
Dr Tezanos-Pinto is a physician and Professor of Medicine at the University of Valparaiso. He is highly recommended by the local BAT company. He is handsome, sophisticated, and already knowledgeable on the subject of ETS . He does not speak English well, but claims to have a reading proficiency. Unfortunately, Dr Tezanos-Pinto has already been branded a "tobacco puppet" by the anti-tobacco lobby. He was crucified by the media a few years ago for stating publicly that the science on ETS/lung cancer is weak. [2] For this reason, he is not too crazy about making new TV appearances. But he would like to work with us, in some capacity. [3]
- He undoubtedly continued to work with them, but not as part of this program
Sergio de Tezanos-Pinto was not on their later 1992 list, but a research papers with his name on a "Study of Pathology in the Tobacco Worker dates back to May 1965. His brother, Jorge Horacio De Tezanos Pinto was not on any of these consultant lists but he turns up in an advertisement in Tobacco Reporter newsletter in April 1991 as the Tobacco Manager of the Tobacco Cooperative in Jujuy, Argentina. [4]
| LATIN AMERICAN CONSULTANTS |
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| Latin American ETS Consultants Program |
| Latin American ETS (Doc Index) |
| Bariloche Conference |
Documents & Timeline
A few dozen of these "ETS Consultants were recruited in the 1991-1995 period. The details are in the Latin American ETS (Doc Index) entry.
1991 Mar 27 The decision had been made by Philip Morris and British American Tobacco to recruit 14 medical ETS/IAQ Experts in Latin America. The lawyers Covington & Burling werer given the job of interviewing the prospective recruits. At this stage they only had names -- the prospective recruits had not been approached. [5]
1991 Apr 9 Sharon Boyse, the Issues Manager at British-American Tobacco in the UK (later B&W in the USA) has written to tobacco lawyer John Rupp at Covington & Burling in New York. She says that the Chilean tobacco staff have difficulty in coming up with constructive comments or suggestions on the list of proposed ETS Consultants for Latin America. She also wanted to know what they intended to do with Dr Tezano-Pinto who had already been identified in the media as a tobacco tout. [6]
On the same day she writes to her company representative in Chile saying that she has asked C&B to add Tezanos-Pinto to their list … but that C&B "prefer to contact people themselves in an attempt to maintain independence of consultants from individual companies." [7]
- Obviously the self-delusionary aspects of this operation were important for the lawyers self-respect.
| 1991Background to the ETS Consultants recruitment program The American tobacco industry lobby was primarily directed by a group of corporate executives at Philip Morris, using the services of the Washington tobacco law firm Covington & Burling (C&B), to protect itself from legal 'discovery'. By the 1990s, the Tobacco Institute had re-asserted its role (under Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds) as the primary channel for lobbying in the USA, and had begun to extend its influence to involve both North and South America. It was also running the WhiteCoats (recruitment of scientific 'consultant' in Europe and Asia). Philip Morris called these recruited academics and medical specialists 'WhiteCoats' while the lawyers knew them as 'IAQ/ETS Consultants.' Potential recruits were approached through the lawyers, usually on the advice of other recruits. The lawyer would then conduct an interview where the scientist or academic would be ensured that their involvement would be kept secret, and so they could maintain the ethical position of an 'independent' and deny any direction from the tobacco industry since they would always be dealing through a lawyer or a third-party scientific society (like IAPAG or ARIA). Payment for services could also be channelled through these third-parties. Since most recruits had no knowledge of the engineering, medical or health problems of second-hand smoke (ETS) they were to be put through a brief training program developed and run at the Tobacco Institute under the name "College of Tobacco Knowledge". To provide them with a semblance of credentials in this new area of 'expertise', they would probably also be given speaking engagements at one of the many closed or controlled (by the industry) conferences on held around the world on the indoor air environment -- which always sought to point the finger for second-hand smoke problems at outside air pollution, carpet exudates, formaldehyde, radon, CO2. Free travel and luxury accommodation for closed conferences held in exotic locations was also a major factor in the benefits of working for tobacco. They also got to socialize with a group of like-minded mercenary contemporaries who would be available to "peer review" any research papers they might later submit (on a 'you-scratch-my-back' principle) to one of the industry's compliant journals. |
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