Observatory - September, 10, 2007
Time seems now ripe for a quick “bio” of these important people (based on
the recent Letter to Dr Margaret Chan)
Thomas EISSENBERG
He maintains close
relations with the Pharmaceutical Industry. He works at VCU (Virginia
Commonwealth University, USA) and for the US-Syrian Center for Tobacco Studies. His
work was financially supported by many grants from US
agencies and the Pharmaceutical industry. He is an excellent slanderer
though, surprisingly, he didn’t state in many of his publications that he has
worked (and probably still works) as a consultant for firms like Plowshare Inc.
and Sention Inc. This obviously represents a non-declared conflict of interest.
Besides, see, as an example, the interesting and innocent products a company like
Plowshare develops… If you still don’t
understand what it is about, contact us.
For more
information:
-Eissenberg Thomas. VCU researcher
wins NCI grant for tobacco research: Studies will test claims of potential
reduced-exposure cigarettes, other products. Virginia
Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, 16 Feb 2004.
-Nicotine & Tobacco Research (2002) 4, 355– 383
[Conference Summary and Abstracts of Oral Presentations Preclinical,
Epidemiological/Public Health, and Clinical Research. Eighth Annual Meeting of
the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco; Savannah, Georgia, USA, 20–23
February 2002].
- VCU
Resarch Office about Thomas EISSENBERG
Dr Thomas EISSENBERG is author or co-author of a certain number of studies (5 at least published in Nicotine and Tobacco Research) [*] in which he has made use of a smoking topography system called CReSS [Clinical Research Support System]. He has personally contributed to its development, through direct funding (2000 to 2002) from PLOWSHARE Technologies, Inc. http://www.plowshare.com , an industrial firm strongly linked to the Tobacco Industry. PLOWSHARE has recently been acquired by BORGWALDT (13 Nov. 2007), a company which sells, on a large scale, flavours and other products to the Tobacco Industry. One of PLOWSHARE's more famous customers was, at least in 2002, Philip MORRIS.
http://plowshare.com/company/background/index.html
http://www.borgwaldt.com/cms/front_content.php
Dr EISSENBERG's work on a smoking topography device has had in fact a direct impact on studies on ""waterpipe"" smoking. For instance: the device is said to be "critical in the assessment of nicotine dependence in smokers […] Moreover, there is a similar need for a smoking topography measurement device capable of measuring any substance, which can be inhaled through the mouth [...]".
See: LIKNESS MA, WESSEL RM. Apparatus for Measuring Smoking Topography. US Patent, 6,814,083 B2; 2004 (9 Nov). This work obviously paved the way to the development of the “waterpipe smoking” machine by the US American University of Beirut (and all the related pseudo-scientific comments in the literature citing the related experiments) which was based on a “smoking topography”. in fact, the latter violated the very principles established by WHO TobReg itself and the topography was biased.
(*) A sample of some studies (co)-authored by Thomas EISSENBERG and having a relation to the smoking topography device:
Wasim MAZIAK
He is the head of the US-Syrian Center for Tobacco Studies He always declared that he has no competing
interests. However, there is now a serious doubt because of contradictory
declarations regarding the real authorship of the erroneous
WHO report on hookah smoking. On one
hand, Wasim MAZIAK himself declared: “Waterpipe research completed by the SCTS
formed an essential part of a WHO's advisory note about waterpipe
smoking”. (Profile:
The Syrian Center for Tobacco Studies. SRNT Newsletter 2006
(May-June) Vol 12 (2)). On the other, we read in the Acknowledgements
section of the erroneous WHO
report that Dr Wasim MAZIAK was one among other collaborators consulted by
the 2 officials authors, namely Thomas EISSENBERG and Alan SHIHADEH.
Now,
in what we consider a “camouflaging operation”, the 4 “waterpipe”™ experts
stated in their last comment (Full story here) that Wasim MAZIAK also
contributed to the WHO report
http://www.jnrbm.com/content/5/1/17/comments#288544
For
your information, Wasim MAZIAK has recently won a job at the University of
Memphis (USA), where his colleague Kenneth WARD, principal investigator for the
US-Syrian Center for
Tobacco Studies as
a US funded project, works. Finally, Wasim MAZIAK also mentions, from time to
time, an affiliation to the University of Muenster (Germany).
We
conclude that perhaps all these (changing) affiliations and such a complex
situation may explain the last intent by the group (Full story here) to reveal his actual previously not
revealed co-authorship of the WHO report. Something must be cooking… Future
will say.
He works at the AUB (American [US, not “South”] University
of Beirut)(nor the Arab University of Beirut). He collaborates with the US-Syrian
Center for Tobacco Studies
Apparently, he receives no other funding than
that from the AUB Research Board and the Canada-based Research for International
Tobacco Control (Recherche pour la Lutte Mondiale contre le Tabac) . Which is already a lot.
Kenneth WARD
He
is not as unassertive and diffident as some people may see him. He works at the
University of Memphis (USA) and his the principal investigator of the US-Syrian Center for Tobacco Studies as a US funded project. Apparently,
he receives no other funding and no fees from consultancies.
He is a member of
WHO TobReg (*) . In general, he doesn’t clearly state in his publications that he is a
consultant to the
Pharmaceutical industry (producers of Nicotine Replacement Therapy medicines). This may
represent a non-declared conflict of interest or a double-standard in the
obligation of such a declaration.
Erik DYBING (Norway; Chairman)
-David L. ASHLEY (USA)
-David BURNS (USA)
-Mirjana DJORDJEVIC (USA)
-S.Katharine HAMMOND (USA)
-Jack HENNINGFIELD (USA)
-Channing ROBERTSON (USA)
-N. GRAY (Australia)
-Martin JARVIS (United Kindom)
-Ghazi ZAATARI (Lebanon, US-American University of Beirut)
-K. Srinath REDDY (India)