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Industry watch
Tobacco documents reveal questionable professional recertification by industry menthol expert
  1. Daniel Stevens1,
  2. Stanton Glantz1,2,3,4
  1. 1Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA
  2. 2Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA
  3. 3Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA
  4. 4Department of Medicine, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA
  1. Correspondence to Professor Stanton Glantz, Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, Suite 366 Library, 530 Parnassus, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94143-1390, USA; glantz{at}medicine.ucsf.edu

https://doi.org/10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2015-052271

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    Jonathan Daniel Heck, PhD, a board certified toxicologist, career scientist at Lorillard Tobacco, and industry expert on menthol, served as an industry representative on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee (TPSAC) from 2010 through 2014. In 2011, Heck was the lead author of the “Industry Menthol Report; Menthol Cigarettes: No Disproportionate Impact on Public Health”1 submitted to the FDA.

    To become certified and maintain his status as a board certified toxicologist, Heck took a certification examination and multiple recertification examinations administered by the American Board of Toxicology. Initial certification required passage of a three-part examination. Recertification occurs through an open-book examination.2

    On 11 July 1996, Heck sent a memo to his supervisor at Lorillard describing his plans for completing the American …

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    Footnotes

    • Funding This work was supported in part by grant CA-87472 from the National Cancer Institute. SG is American Legacy Foundation Distinguished Professor in Tobacco Control.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Data sharing statement All data used in this manuscript are publicly available at the Legacy Tobacco Documents Library.