ABOUT         CONTACT         OVERVIEW     CONTRIBUTION

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |     Dates

USA

WARNING: This site deals only with the corporate corruption of science, and makes no inference about the motives or activities of individuals involved.
    There are many reasons why individuals become embroiled in corporate corruption activities - from political zealotry to over-enthusiastic activism; from gullibility to greed.
    Please read the OVERVIEW carefully, and make up your own mind.




TOBACCO INDUSTRY EXPLANATORY

ABBREVIATIONS
JARGON
SPIN-MEISTERS
INITIALS
FIRST & NICKNAMES
Misc.RESEARCH HELP

RELEVANT LINKS
FTR
Ragnar Rylander

 

 

OPINION ONLY

[Temporary: while site is under construction]  

Institut fur Biologische Forshung    

(INBIFO)

INBIFO was a small commercial laboratory with considerable skills in animal-based research. IT was purchased by Philip Morris's Richmond Research & Development Division in the early 1970s. They did this by way of their Swiss subsidiary Fabriuques de Tabac Reunies (FTR), to keep their interest in the organization secret.

  The Swedish researcher, Ragnar Rylander, was then brought in on a part-time basis (He was also at the University of Geneva) to further hide Philip Morris USA's direct involvement.



PRELIMINARY MATERIAL ONLY

In order to hide their ownership of the INBIFO facilities at Cologne, Marienburg and Porz, all work done for Philip Morris's (Richmond, USA) Research & Development division (run by Drs Wakeham and Osdene) were given normal commercial project numbers. All accounts and expenses were charged through Philip Morris's subsidiary in Switzerland, the Fabriuques de Tabac Reunies (FTR) (based in Neuchatel). The special charge number 0500 identifies these 'pass through' payments.

The INBIFO organization retained its appearances as being a normal, commercial, independent research laboratory, and continued to accept contracts from other companies and industries for work. Many of the staff divided their time between the extra-mural research, and Philip Morris's inhouse research.

However, from 1972 on, Philip Morris began expanding the laboratory mainly for its own purposes, although in 1973 the expenditures of the R&D division at INBIFO were limited to $350,000.

Special Pathogen Free (SPF) facilities were introduced for animal (skin painting and inhalation) research. Payment for these facilities was made also via FTR.


1972 May 26: Osdene and Wakeham are in Europe visiting INBIFO and some other contract researchers. They visit Rylander at the Karolinska Institute. He is doing animal inhalation research for them using SPF guinea pigs. [However the Institute, it later transpires, is not at all happy about this sort of product research being conducted under the Hygiene Department auspices]

Confidentially, Dr Rylander has told me that he may be moving to the University of Geneva in the late fall and I expect to hear further details shortly.

    It was decided that Dr Stauffer [from the FTR] will continue to monitor the INBIFO project for the time being.
[The R&D group in Richmond have been unhappy with the lack of communications from the INBIFO staff, who have always acted as independent researchers in the past. The FTR in Switzerland had been given the job of keeping track of their work, but they were not animal-research experts.]

INBIFO organisational chart

    INBIFO was a commercial laboratory which provided services to other companies and other industries. These clients would not have known about Philip Morris's invovlement, and this commercial work provided the tobacco company with 'cover'.

    This meant that many of the staff were only working part-time on tobacco research.
    A rough staff organisation plan for Philip Morris's work was drawn up by Wakeham and Osdene at this time. It has:
  • Ulrich Hackenberg as the full-time chief scientist.
  • He is assisted by two part-time staff,
    • Gunther (Medical on 10 yr contract) who will also prepare the reports
    • Römer (Biology on 5 yr contract)
  • Hockenbury is to head the Pharmacology/Toxicology division with four sub-divisions, including animal inhalation and haematology
  • Strufe to head the Chemistry division
  • Reinhaus to head the Physics division and Information Systems division (with Franz Muller)

    Dr Stauffer from the Swiss FTR was given the job of handling the reports, but this is where most of the problems arose. The reports were being made in German [Both Osdene and Wakeham had German origins] Many of the staff were also only employed part-time on the tobacco work.

See page 4

1972 June 12: Tom Osdene writes to Ulrich Hackenberg, the chief scientist at INBIFO their secretly-owned laboratory complex in Cologne. He has just returned from visiting INBIFO and Rylander in Stockholm, and suggests that Hackenberg might visit Rylander to discuss mouse research techniques.

    Rylander is obviously now trusted enough to be let into the secret connection between INBIFO and Philip Morris.

1972 Jun 20: INBIFO is planning new skin-painting experiments at their new facility at Marienbad.

    Tom Osdene's notes of the meeting say:
 
    "Skin painting for real only in new building. [his emphasis]
  All work till then on skin painting will be perparatory in nature."

1972 June 28: Philip Morris's Director of Research, Dr Tom Osdene's notes of a telephone Conversation with Ragnar Rylander which was sent to his immediate boss Helmut Wakeham.

Dr Rylander returned my call today and we briefly discussed the subject of INBIFO. The following points were made:
  • We would be interested in having him act as our part-time representative to INBIFO.
  • We would require his physical presence in Cologne for a minimum of 3 days per month (36 days per year) . His remuneration for this would be based on a per diem of $250 plus expenses.
  • He would officially be carried on the books as a consultant to FTR and would be paid by FTR.
  • His duties, however, would involve supervising our projects at INBIFO and he would also assist in planning and organizing this work.
  • We would expect exclusivity for his services.
[In sum, he would act as the American research division's liason and supervisor with the German secret research group — protecting the cigarette company from being implicated in animal research, and himself requiring the FTR as a cut-out so that he is not directly implicated.]
In response to his request whether he could continue working with other non-commercial organizations such as WHO, I said that I felt that this would be possible. I also said that we would expect to maintain a degree of support for continuation of our joint projects.
[They would have been delighted to have him continue working with the World Health Organization.]

1972 Sep: Philip Morris took out a three year lease on the Marienburg facility [Note not 'Marienbad'], which was to be used for mouse skin-painting and for long-term inhalation research. The short term inhalation work becan Jan 1 1973 and finished March 31. The two year inhalation work began with the SPF facility in June 1973.

1972 Sep 18: Osdene to Wakeham outlining how they should handle the "Technical Program at INBIFO" [Copied to Rylander on 7th December] Philip Morris research staff in America (Richmond) and Switzerland (FTR) had had problems in dealing with the INBIFO group (which had been an independent laboratory until the PM purchase). Osdene writes:

In view of some problems of communication between INBIFO, FTR and Richmond R&D, particularly in the transmission of reports and of bills, we propose the alleviation of these problems by the following system of operations.

l. COORDINATOR OR MONITOR
    Establish the position of coordinator which will be filled by a person knowledgable in the problems of determining the biological effects of smoke. The duties of the coordinator will include:
  1. Be at INBIFO for a minimum of 3 days/month,
  2. Assist in preparation and review all Philip Morris R&D project proposals,
  3. Responsible for monthly review of Philip Morris R&D project,
  4. Transmit all technical reports to Philip Morris R&D ,
  5. Authorize all monthly project expenditures before submission to FTR. Transmit copy to Philip Morris R&D for information purposes only,
  6. Act as consultant to Philip Morris R&D projects at INBIFO;
  7. Authorize expenditures up to $1,000/project for expenditures not anticipated in project proposal, and
  8. Immediately notify Philip Morris R&D in case of overruns of 20% or more in any Philip Morris cost proposal.

    INBIFO will make a brief written monthly report for each authorized project or subproject which will be sumitted to the coordinator. The coordinator will transmit a copy to Philip Morris R&D (and to FTR if required),

    An interim report will be submitted to the coordinator within one month following completion of experimental work and gross pathology.

    Monthly billings, itemized by project and subproject, will be submitted by INBIFO to the coordinator for approval and transmission to FTR. The coordinator will send copies of each to Philip Morris R&D for informational purposes only.
  • Coordinator could be paid directly from Richmond—"for technical services".
  • Coordinator should, preferably, report only to Philip Morris R&D.
[This was the job description for Rylander's new role, supposedly as a 'FTR consultant' but, in fact, as a part time supervisor, advisor and liason between INBIFO and Philip Morris R&D in Richmond. The FTR only provided financial services and played a window-dressing/cut-out role.]

1972 Oct 5: Ragnar Rylander met Wakeham at INBIFO on this day.

    Shortly after he signed the agreement with Philip Morris to act as INBIFO coordinator, and he was paid ever-increasing fees by Philip Morris between 1972 to 1997 for a range of services.

Specific Pathogen Free (SPF)

    The reference to SPF facilities and animals, refers to 'Specific Pathogen Free', where the animals are raised in a sterile environment supplied certified as having no antibodies to the common diseases.

    They need special care and handling since they have no natural antibodies. One requirement is for positive air pressure rooms, and this then meant they needed special smoking machines and protective devices in case of a machine malfunction.

1972 Oct 10: Rylander is ready now to shift to Geneva, and will make his decision about INBIFO "within a few weeks."

1972 Oct 31: Meeting on PR R&D and INBIFO. Decisions being made without Rylander.

1972 Nov: /E Philip Morris started using the SPF Facility involved long term inhalation work at Marienburg.

1984 July: Report of INBIFO meeting in October says about skin-painting experiments:

  1. No skin painting of animals is anticipated before INBIFO occupies the Porz facility (July, 1974).
  2. INBIFO should begin condensate preparation, testing and standardization on a small scale, low priority basis in 1973.




Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License