Business Notes Cigarettes

In search of evidence that cigarette smoking is not dangerous, the industry- sponsored Council for Tobacco Research spends $18 million a year to bankroll studies by prominent scientists. But a new poll, published in the American Journal of Public Health, shows that 93% of the tobacco-funded scientists surveyed "strongly believe" that most lung-cancer deaths are caused by smoking. The industry's response is that it sponsors studies without regard to results. But the survey taker, K. Michael Cummings of the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, demurs: "Scientists receiving support from the council should ask themselves whether the value of their research outweighs its contribution to an industry that kills 400,000 Americans a year."