TY - JOUR T1 - Changing <em>Tobacco Control</em>'s policy on tobacco industry-funded research JF - Tobacco Control JO - Tob Control SP - 1 LP - 2 DO - 10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2012-050874 VL - 22 IS - 1 AU - Ruth E Malone Y1 - 2013/01/01 UR - http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/22/1/1.abstract N2 - For several years, the senior editors and editorial board of Tobacco Control have discussed changing our formal stance on the publication of research funded by the tobacco industry. It is simple enough to say, as most journals do, that regardless of funding source, well-done science should always be welcome at a journal if it passes peer review, and that full disclosure about funding sources provides adequate warning to reviewers and readers about potential research and/or reporting biases. There are good arguments to be made challenging disclosure as a method for insuring scientific transparency,1 ,2 but the core of the issue is deeper than this: it involves whether there are systematic reasons to believe that publishing tobacco industry-funded research violates higher principles.3 In the case of the tobacco industry, there is abundant evidence (only a small sample is cited here) to show that this is the case, and to call for making a clear distinction based on funding source. First, of course, is the overwhelming evidence that tobacco companies have repeatedly and systematically interfered with legitimate scientific research, and repeatedly used industry-funded scientists and their industry-facilitated findings to deceive consumers and undermine public health.4–16 The issue is not merely that the tobacco companies produce research biased to favour their positions; they also use their scientists as key ambassadors in their corporate legitimacy-rebuilding work.17 For example, re-establishing connections with reputable scientists was made an explicit part of Philip Morris's long-term plan to rebuild its public reputation and renormalise the tobacco business.18 Thus, when peer-reviewed health journals publish industry-funded work, they are putting their journals in service to tobacco industry public relations goals. Second, Tobacco Control, as a journal, has always … ER -