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.

OPINION ONLY

"WhiteCoats" (the term used by the industry) differed from both retained academic/scientific "consultants" and from the tobacco industry's "witnesses".

WhiteCoats were identified by either head-hunting firms, or by other scientific retainers of the industry, but they were always formally approached and recruited by lawyers. The aim was for them to provide secret support for the tobacco industry in various ways; they were not to reveal their connections, and they were paid on the piecemeal basis of work done.

WhiteCoats were deliberately recruited from a variety of different medical, scientific and academic disciplines, and they were expected to be largely self-directing and self-motivating. To make money, they had to find opportunities to help the industry by:

• carefully watching the literature relevant to their discipline, and reporting on it.
  
• attending conferences as speakers, panelists, or sometimes just as participants who prepared a report for the industry/
  
• providing 'independent expert witness' testimony at inquiries,
  
• writing letters-to-the-editor and articles to promote industry views or attacked anti-smoking propaganda.

In general, during the 1990s, WhiteCoats were paid between US $500 and $750 a day for their work, depending on the value of the work and academic prestige of the WhiteCoat.

Training

They were also taught about the resources available to them in Europe and the USA. For instance:

• the US WhiteCoats organisation IAPAG (Indoor Air Pollution Advisory Group) with the law firm Covington & Burling, jointly ran one of the early electronic databases which held abstracts of smoking and health research.
• The English WhiteCoats organisation ARIA (Associates for Research in Indoor Air) had an effective money-laundry service which paid into Swiss bank accounts.
• The European IAI (Indoor Air International) pretended to be a legitimate scientific organisation with real members. It both ran conferences and published a 'peer-reviewed' scientific Journal.

Credentials

Ideally, they needed to have some article or research report on a smoking/health related subject published in a scientific journal. Fortunately, Professor Roger Perry, one of the main recruiters, was also the section editor of Environmental Technology Letters. So this was entirely possible (he published a lot of the tobacco industry's fake science — but the standards of the fakery needed to be high.)

The tobacco industry also overcame the credentialing problem by including the new recruits in special closed or controlled conferences where they presented (usually ghost-written) speeches on subjects they knew little about.

Honest scientists would generally only find out about these conferences after the event ... and then often only through press-releases put out to publicise a supposed 'consensus of the conference delegates.' These would have been pre-written by tobacco company PR staff which organised the conference, and it would inevitably find that tobacco smoke was harmless.

This process allowed new recruits to acquire documented credentials in the field of Smoking & Health because their crafted words of wisdom were published in the conference proceedings.

[This type of publication is often accepted in the scientific world as a form of 'peer-review' — since not all speeches are published in most conference proceedings.]

Satellite Conferences

Citation amplification

It is especially valuable for academic staff, who carefully record each 'citation' by other scientists as a score-board to be presented to university administrators as proof of their standing in their scientific discipline.

Recruitment techniques

• A possible recruit was conducted by lawyers who asked it they were interested in consulting for un-named clients. Neither the tobacco companies nor the recruits wanted these links to be public knowledge, and the industry couldn't risk having it known that they were actively searching for scientists willing to act as 'sleepers' and 'moles.'
  
• The lawyers then paid the recruits to read a bundle of light-weight, anti- and pro-smoking, scientific literature and preparing a report — without them being actually told that cigarette companies were behind the test.
  
• Shrewd scientists would quickly discern that this was the tobacco industry, so, any who actively objected to smoking would simply take their payment and drop out without any proof that the tobacco industry was behind the lawyers requests.
  
• Those who wished to supplement meagre academic salaries with generous splashes of tobacco cash in the future ... plus travel to international conferences ... and scientific recognition inherrent in conference speeches, citations, etc. ... and the possibility of genuine paid consulting work from local building operators or owners ... would produce a report favouring the industry's well-known views.
  
• The lawyers would then reveal their clients, and explain:
  • how payments could be laundered through cut-outs, or fake consultant organisations (like ARIA)
    
  • the fees-for-service arrangements.
    
  • that they were being employed by lawyers, not by tobacco companies.

Money Laundering and Cut-outs.

As one memo reported, Sarah Liao herself declined to work directly for the tobacco industry, "more for pragmatic than philosophical reasons (she works for both private industry and government and wants to retain that balance)." However she was willing to provide recruiting services and to launder payments, and her company undertook a $1 million research project with funds which had been laundered through the Center for Indoor Air Research (CIAR). [Only later was this identified as a tobacco-front operation.]

Results:

Their speeches then appeared in the widely-distributed McGill ETS Conference Proceedings which the WhiteCoats themselves distribute throughout Asia. It was designed to be used as a text-book on Indoor Air Quality in university courses, etc. but it was as trustworthy as a land-mine.

A couple of the original Asian Whitecoats eventually dropped out; one because he returned to England and became a fully-fledged industry consultant, while another withdrew from active involvement, although she kept her options open for renewal at a later date. John Rupp from Covington & Burling worked tirelessly (earning his company millions of dollars) for a number of years on this project, and he gradually increasing the numbers recruited in all of the major Asian countries.

Philip Morris and Covington & Burling also created two Asian shelf-company/associations designed to launder payments, and to provide contracted consulting work with a gloss of legitimacy.

• APAIAQ (Asian Pacific Association for IAQ)
• ARTIST (Asian Regional Tobacco Industry Science Team)

Some key documents

1989 Feb 25: John Rupp of Covington & Burling's report on a trip through Asia with George Leslie (ARIA) to recruit Asian WhiteCoats.

[The key points only — you should read the whole document.]

• Dr Ben Reverente introduced them to Dr Malinee Wongphanich (Malaysia), the current president of the Asian Association of Occupational Health (AAOH).
  • He is already on the technical committee for the [tobacco-run] 1990 Lisbon Conference
  • He is with Philippine Refining Co. (Unilever) and was the past president of the AAOH (1982-85 ).
  • he is on WHO's Occupational Health Panel.
  • He offered the name of a friend, Professor Lina Somera, from the College of Public Health, Uni of the Philippines.
• Dr. Malinee Wongphanich assisted them in many ways:
  • She provided the recruiters with the names for the ETS Project,
  • She asked George Leslie (representing the IAI) to organise a session on IAQ at the AAOH's Nov 1991 conference
  • Agreed that the AAOH will be a joint sponsor of the 1990 IAI Lisbon Conference
  • agreed to serve on the technical committee
  • She will introduce Leslie to the WHO Chairman for Occupational Health from Japan and the ILO Chairman for occupational Health from Singapore at the April 17-21 WHO meeting in Geneva
  • In return, Leslie invited her to London for a meeting of the Lisbon Conference technical committee
• Professor Fengsheng He, Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine, Beijing. ARIA [European WhiteCoats organisation] paid for Dr He to attend the Manila Conference; she does not know, however, the ultimate source of these funds.
  • She is the most eminent toxicologist in China and her published work is recognized internationally.
  • She is likely to become the next President of the AAOH.
  • They did not attempt to recruit her (at that time) for the ETS Project.
  • discussions were confined to attendance at the Lisbon Conference and she agreed to serve on the technical committee.
• Dr Marilyn Go is a medically qualified pediatrician with an interest in research. She is the wife of Dr. William Go, a surgeon at Valenzuela Hospital, Philippines
  • we perhaps should encourage her to attend a pediatrics conference on our behalf and make some contacts.
• Dr Jung Koo Roh founded toxicology in Korea and runs a team of approximately 40 scientists at the only contract toxicology center in Asia outside of Japan.
  • He was a UN-sponsored scientist on loan to KRICT [Korean tobacco research institute] two years ago.
  • he expressed a personal interest in working with us, as well as a willingness to open other Korean doors for us.
  • He agreed to accompany us to meet with other Korean scientists on our next trip
  • He will be attending the Toxicology Congress in Brighton in July.
• Dr Alun McIntyre, Director, Consultants in Environmental Sciences (Asia) Ltd. (CES), a consulting firm consisting of four environmental scientists assisted by about 20 engineers. CES is connected with Balfours International (Asia).
  • He is an expert on most kinds of pollution and has a special interest in air pollution.
  • His normal daily consulting fee is HK$800 and we should compensate him for attending the ACVA Converence,
  • He gave us the name of Dr.[Sarah] Liao, whom he engages for some of his projects.
• Dr. Sarah Liao started her consulting firm last year and has a staff of 5.
  • Her current specialty is asbestos.
  • She is also a close personal friend of Linda Koo.
  • she is married to the Postmaster General in Hong Kong and well-connected politically.
  • She has undertaken some office safety audits for BAT in the past.
  • She declined offers to consult on smoking ahd health,for pragmatic reasons ... she work for both private industry and government in Hong Kong and wants to retain that balance.
  • She criticizes the health lobby for its inquisitorial tactics and scientific bias.
  • She has agreed to screen potential candidates, and says that, in order to recruit high-level scientists, the funding must come from industries in addition to tobacco. [ie hide behind coaltions]
  • She accepted our invitation to attend the ACVA Conference. Her rate is the same as Dr. McIntyre's, HK$800 per day.
• Dr Linda Koo (Hong Kong University) who spent 17 years in US schools, including Berkeley, where she received her PhD.
  • She has an extremely attractive and sparkling personality and is utterly Americanized.
  • she agreed to serve on the technical committee for the Lisbon Conference and to give a paper,
  • She indicated a willingness to help us in a private capacity.

1989 Apr 10: David Billings (John Rupp's associate at C&B) reports on progress of the Asian ETS consultant's recruitment project (he is travelling with George Leslie of ARIA). This report details the progress of the recruitment project in the various countries and outlines the field of interest of those recruited. They have already set up the two-day Bangkok training workshop.

• Yoon Shin Kim is a prized recruit from Korea
• Sarah Liao will act as an intermediary and will launder the payments made to Linda Koo.

"Unlike Korea and the Philippines, we suffered from the considerable handicap of not having a friendly contact in any branch of the Taiwanese scientific community. For this reason, we proceeded circumspectly from one phone call and meeting to the next.

"Dr. Wang expressed guarded interest in our project up until the moment he learned a group of tobacco companies were lurking in the background . He thereafter politely expressed his opinion that the American firms are unethically marketing their products in Asia, particularly to young people."

[It is nice to see that some of the scientists they approached had some sense of public-interest morality.]

1989 April 21: John Rupp of Covington & Burling is billing the three main US tobacco companies for a payment he has already made to George Leslie for the ETS Consultant program in Asia.

The bulk of the charges included in the statement were incurred by Dr. Leslie in connection with the recruiting trip that he and David Billings of our office completed earlier this month.

    I am hopeful that the three of you will be able to decide soon on a formula for apportioning the costs of the Asia project. While waiting for you to do so, and because of cash flow problems that Dr. Leslie has experienced, I have taken the step of covering Dr. Leslie's earlier statement — sent to you on March 20 — with a check from our firm.

[Leslie appears to have been constantly broke, and asking for payments]

1989 May 25: Lawyer/recruiter John Rupp of Covington & Burling is reporting to representative of the three main cigarette companies involved in funding the project: Jim Goold (RJR), Tom Humber (B&W), John Dollison (PM) and a few others. (lawyers, executives and PR people)

There are attached two reports that should provide you with a reasonably complete picture of the evolution of the ETS consultant project in Asia.

    The second report, which David Billings [C&B lawyer under Rupp] prepared following the recruiting trip that he and George Leslie [ARIA consultant] took in early April, summarizes the current status of the project — who has agreed to participate, their level of knowledge of the issues, the role they may be able to play in the project.

    As noted in David's April 10 memorandum, we have invited the scientists whom we have recruited to a training session in Bangkok on June 22 and 23. The assignment that we have given the scientists in anticipation of that meeting is to read, and to become thoroughly familiar with, all of the ETS scientific publications within their fields of expertise.

    Our goal is to leave the meeting on June 22 and 23 with a core group of scientists who are fully trained on the relevant issues and have developed sufficient enthusiasm to be prepared to make a real contribution — by way of writing articles, participating on our behalf at scientific meetings, joining industry people at briefings of government officials and so forth.

    This far we have recruited ten scientists — Drs [Clive] Ogle, [John] Bacon-Shone, [Malinee] Wongphanich, [Ben] Reverente, [Marylin] Go, [Jung Koo] Roh, [Alun] McIntyre, [Sarah] Liao, [Yoon Shin] Kim and [Lina] Somera.

Dr Wongphanich cannot now be regarded as a full-fledged member of the group. But she will be attending the Bangkok meeting and, given her position with the Asian Occupational Health Association, she ought to be of substantial value to us over time.

    [W]e have reestablished a productive ongoing working relationship with Dr Linda Koo, who is the single most prominent ETS scientist in all of Asia. Although Dr . Koo cannot afford formally to join our group, the ability we have developed to consult with her should pay substantial dividends [and she] has agreed to make a presentation in Bangkok on the ETS/lung cancer issue.

    On the financing side, [w]e thus far have paid consultant bills totaling $25,486.93. We have advanced those payments out of firm funds and are awaiting reimbursement. We have on hand two additional consultant statements totaling $39,232 .29. In addition, we anticipate receiving over the next several weeks statements from our individual consultants totaling approximately $25,000. [ie about $10,000 for each recruited scientist]

    Those statements will cover the consultants' time charges in reading the ETS literature packets we have provided to them, doing other work in preparation for the Bangkok meeting and actually attending the Bangkok meeting [The recruiter's consultancy fees were $64,719.]

1989 June 21 - 23: Agenda of the first Training workshop for Asian WhiteCoats in Bangkok. The speakers and helpers at the conference were

• George Leslie (Chairman)
• Francis Roe
• Yoon Shin Kim
• Linda Koo
• Malinee Wongphanich
• Roger Perry
• Christopher Proctor
• Benito Reverent
• Sarah Liao
• Jung Koo Roh
• Payaow Pruksakorn
• Lina Somera
• lawyers David Billings and John Rupp (C&B),
• the Chris Proctor report says that Jim Goold of RJR Corporate Legal and Public Affairs was also an observer.

See Page 10

1989 July 7: Chris Proctor (BAT) reported to his executives on the "First Meeting of Asian ETS Consultants: Thailand." He says this was an attempt ...

...to consolidate a group of scientific consultants in Asia that will be willing to contribute to the debate on ETS issues.

    The initial efforts of identifying and bringing together a group of consultants in Asia is being sponsored by B&W, PM and RJR, with John Rupp of Covington and Burling co-ordinating the efforts. Much of the ground-work has been undertaken by George Leslie, a toxicologist who in part, co-ordinates the UK ETS consultant group, ARIA, and David Billings, a Covington and Burling lawyer only a few months out of law school.

Regarding structure, Leslie is the direct interface between Rupp and the scientists and funding of individual consultants is channelled through Leslie. However, Rupp maintains strong control over Leslie.
[They are maintaining a two-level money-laundry system, or three-levels if it first passes through ARIA.]

    It was proposed that each country might partake in an indoor air quality study to be compared and presented at a conference in Lisbon in early 1990. Rupp undertook to seek sponsors for such a study.

    It was stated that the consultants should continue to act independently, but that Sarah Liao would be sponsored to receive current literature on ETS and IAQ from ARIA, and should subsequently pass relevant papers to each consultant. In private, it was also agreed that Liao would be used as a route to fund Koo.

"Wongphanich was a surprise . Her presentation was seemingly direct from WHO. Even her first remark, "no one in Thailand had thought about ETS before Leslie arrived" was revealing. Rupp and Leslie suggest that she did not fully understand the situation and could be educated."

1989 July 11: Ex-Australian tobacco lobbyist Andrew Whist (now head of PMI Corporate Affairs), writes to his ex-Australian boss, Geoff Bible, who now heads Philip Morris International. He is reporting on WhiteCoats programs (Europe, Scandinavia and Asia) after two years. He boasts about the successes:

• They have recruited 70 scientists as WhiteCoats.
• Budgeting payments and control has now been handed over on a regional basis to the local corporate affairs divisions in those countries.
• Corporate Affairs staff in New York supervise the program (under Whist)
• The lawyers from Covington & Burling also have a watching brief.
• Several hundred specific activities or events have been completed —
• press briefings,
• government official briefings,
• publications of scientific reviews,
• several air-quality studies (to prove tobacco isn't a problem in offices
• running a number of scientific conferences
• submissions to inquiries on public smoking
• testimony before various legislative bodies
• preparing legal affidavits opposing claims of ETS health problems
• publication of a book "Clearing the Air"
• drafting of two additional books on ETS and IAQ issues
• "approximately 100 separate presentations at major international scientific meetings challenging the unwarranted health claims made concerning ETS."

• Total project cost over two years : $2,500,000
• Total legal cost over two years : Approximately $1,000,000

1989 Aug 17: confidential RJ Reynolds inter-office memorandum from Wallace Hayes, a scientist and executive who was on the CIAR Board of Directors, to Robert DiMarco explaining the operation:

"RJ Reynolds, British American Tobacco (BAT), and Philip Morris have initiated a cooperative program in Asia to address ETS issues. Mr. John Rupp, Covington & Burling, is responsible for coordinating the program.

    The broad objective of the program is to identify and train Asian scientists to articulate ETS issues in Asia: Steps toward these objectives have been taken.

"One item on the agenda of the Hong Kong meeting deals with surveys of ETS in Seoul and Manila, as well as Hong Kong. In contrast, [with] earlier surveys done by scientists using portable air sampling systems (PASS's), these surveys would focus more on ambient air quality, that is, outside air quality.

    Drawing information [useful data] about ambient air quality in these and other Asian cities, [our] scientists expect that results from such surveys would place the ETS issue in better perspective by showing that indoor air quality is determined primarily by what is outside. Viewed in these terms, ETS can be expected to be relatively insignificant."

[They hired the company ACVA/HBI to do office air-quality measurements to prove this point — and paid them handsomely to ensure that all measurements matched industry expectations.]

" Dr Chris Proctor of BAT, and Dr Guy Oldaker [RJ Reynolds] will draft a general protocol for these surveys. This protocol will be presented at the Hong Kong meeting."

1989 Sep 2: — 3 Report on the Hong-Kong meeting on protocols for doing some IAQ testing of Asian buildings to prove passive smoke wasn't a problem. [Taken from the later report by John Rupp]

The second meeting of the Asian consulting group took place in Hong Kong on September 2 and 3. Dr Chris Proctor from BAT and Dr Guy Oldaker of RJR attended the meeting to assist in the design of protocols for baseline indoor air measurements in Hong Kong, Manila and Seoul [which] should provide concrete evidence of serious air pollution problems in those cities unrelated to ETS and assist in our ongoing effort to place ETS in perspective.

    Dr. Oldaker described an indoor air survey of 51 restaurants in Hong Kong. For the protocols, we agreed to concentrate on typical office environments in Hong Kong, Seoul and Manila. Moreover, we requested that each of the designated consultants ( Sarah Liao/Hong Kong, Yoon Shin Kim/Korea, Lina Somera/Philippines) send to Chris Proctor recommendations of several additional sites or categories of sites that will uniquely reflect actual exposures of individuals in the selected cities. These data will supplement the office building data to create a more accurate indoor air profile of those cities.

    The Asian consultants participating in the [tobacco-controlled] McGill ETS symposium ( Liao, Reverente, Somera and Kim) will meet informally in advance of the symposium to discuss progress on the protocols and other issues. As the consultants' fees and expenses are being paid out of the budget for McGill, the participating companies in Asia will not be billed for those costs.

1989 Sep 27: John Rupp's Status report on the Asian WhiteCoats Project. [This report is the first evidence of the new WhiteCoats organisation APAIAQ — the Asian Pacific Association for Indoor Air Quality.] Rupp reports that:

At the first meeting of the Asian consultants in Bangkok, we responded to a unanimously expressed view among the consultants that the stature and credibility of the group would be strengthened if they were permitted — as a group — to solicit and accept research assignments from a variety of sponsors, including governmental bodies.

    Although we voiced some skepticism concerning the practicability of this tack, we did not gainsay the advantages it would entail. We therefore prepared a draft brochure, which was distributed at the Hong Kong meeting and offered up as one means of attracting other clients for the group (see tab B). The Asian consultants are presently tinkering with this draft, and a final version may be forthcoming next month.

[When WhiteCoats operated throught 'non-profit consulting fron groups' like this, and managed to attract minor business from sources other than tobacco. This then provided all members with the cover necessary to avoid being targeted in a law-court as a 'tobacco scientist'. However the theory hadn't always worked in practice; in Scandinavia, EGIL had collapsed because of internal disputes.]

1990 April: [From an earlier Asian ETS Consultants Project report from John Rupp.]

Lisbon Conference — April 1990
A number of the Asia consultants ( Kim, Liao, Somera and Reverente) are in the process of finishing drafts of papers for presentation at the Lisbon conference on "Indoor Air Quality and Ventilation in Warm Climates."

    As discussed in our July 31 report, the papers should serve to document

1. sources of indoor air quality problems having nothing to do with ETS and
2. areas in which additional research is needed.

[In Asia, the tobacco companies focussed on ambient outdoor air-pollution to explain sick-building-syndrome, while, in the developed world, they fingered air-conditioning rates, duct maintenance, photocopy machines, plastic paints and synthetic carpets.]

1990 Oct 19: This is a record of the meeting of the new Asian Consultants (WhiteCoats) in Manila, just before a formal training conference. It lists thos present

New Consultants,

• Dr I Fihir — Jakarta
• Dr Lee Siew Eang — Singapore
• Dr Lim Heng Juat — KL
• Dr Wen-chen Victor Liu — Taipei
• Dr Quah Lee Kiang — Singapore
  

Participants [Older WhiteCoats and Recruiters]

• Luis Ferrer
• Helen Garnett
• Linda Koo
• George Leslie
• Roger Perry
• Ben Revernte
• Camilo Roa
• Lina Somera

Lawyers: David Billings, John Rupp (C&B)

1990 Oct 20: Conference titled: Indoor Air Quality: Architectural and Medical Concerns which was held in Manila, Philippines. This is an Asian WhiteCoats conference, which is supposedly sponsored by the ...

• Philippine College of Occupational Medicine.
• United Architects of the Philippines.

• Quah Lee Kiang
• Helen M Garnett
• Roger Perry
• George B Leslie
• Camilo C Roa
• Lina Somera
• Benito Reverente
• Luis M Ferrer
• Lee Siew Eang

See Page 3

1990 Oct 29: The diaries of Tom Osdene, Science & Technology director of Philip Morris, are extremely revealing because he records everything (albeit in his own shorthand form). Page 8 of this diary record his trip to Hong Kong, arriving Saturday October 27

• Sunday Oct 28,
  4.30pm talked with Mopsy [Mary Pottorff]. Had dinner with her and discussed future of ETS with new studies about ???
• Monday Oct 29. At Philip Morris Asia offices.
  9.30 am Present:
  • [John] Rupp, Covington & Burling lawyer from Washington DC
  • [David] Billing, C&B lawyer from Washington DC
  • [Sharon] Boyse, BAT's Issues Manager from London
  • Ray Donner, Tokyo Public relations for RJ Reynolds International
  • Patrick Reckart, (HK Tobacco Instittue ??)
  • N Takasu, Japanese Tobacco Institute
  • Don Harris, Philip Morris Corporate Affairs, now in Hong Kong
  • "Mopsy" (Mary Pottorff) Philip Morris International's Asian Issues Manager
  • TSO (himself - Tom S Osdene)
  • Susan Ho, Corporate Affairs for PM Asia.

[They discussed]

1) Status of SE Asian Consultants [WhiteCoats]
recruitment in 11 Counries — HK, Philippins, Taiwan, Singapore, Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, PRC (Peoples Republic of China) Australia, Thailand and Japan.
[He then lists some potential Japanese recruits — all environmantal chemists]
    • Dr Kerichi Furuya — Science University, Tokyo
    • Dr Yoshikaga Hashimoto — Keio University
    • Dr Jim Kapawa MD — Tokyo Women's Medical College
    • Dr Kikuji Kimura — Institute for Science of Labor
    • Dr Masarn Kitano — Chemical Inspection & Testing Inst

• 1991 Bangkok satelllite conference (added to the AOHA conference)
• Phillipine Architects conference in Manilla (Proceedings published by University of San Tomas)
• ditto, in Malaysia and/of Indonesia
• EEC Grant Applications - the committee which gives out the money is chaired by Roger Perry [a UK WhiteCoat and recruiter; Imperial College London]
• Major Study in Phillipines is propose (for) 350,000 ECU with Imperial College and Univerity of San Tomas

1991 June 28: Covington & Burling is setting up Whitecoat-controlled conference in Seoul, Korea which is to be pseudo-sponsored by the Korean Ministry of the Environment and supposedly organised by Hanyan University. The list of sponsors also includes 'IAI' which is a Swiss-based subsidiary of ARIA known as Indoor Air International.

    Most of the first day speakers are Korean with a few Japanese thrown in for regional effect. Other speakers, for the bulk of the conference, come from Asian WhiteCoats group or from the US and UK tobacco lobby.

• Fengsheng He — Academy of Preventive Medicine, Beijing (WhiteCoat)
• Eung-Bai Shin — Hanyan University (WhiteCoat)
• Eiji Yano — of Teikyo University in Tokyo (WhiteCoat)
• Philip W Witorsch — of George Washington Uni. (Member of IAPAG — the US WhiteCoats org.)
• Helen M Garnett — Uni of Wollongong, Australia (an occasional tobacco 'helper' in Asia)
• Sarah Liao — Hong Kong WhiteCoat recruiter
• Lee Kiang Quah — Singapore (WhiteCoat)
• Chris Proctor — BAT scientist and C&B expert.
  [Proctor is listed as a "Professor, School of Pharmacology, Georgetown University Medical School, Washington DC" but at this time he was working with C&B as a Science Advisor, having recently transfered from BAT in England.]
• Jung Koo Roh — Korean KRICT (WhiteCoat with an industry research position)
• Roger Perry — Professor at Imperial College, London, and also the main UK recruiter and head of ARIA, the UK WhiteCoat consulting group.
• Yoon Shin Kim — Hanyang University (WhiteCoat)

[By the date of the conference, they had managed to inveigle a genuine Asian-American air scientist to give their conference an air of legitimacy.]

1991 Nov 28-29: International Symposium on Indoor Air Quality in Asia. Note that this one was held in Bangkok — they are like a touring company of actors, going from country to country. This conference was supposedly sponsored by:

• The Asian Association of Occupational Health
• IAI [Indoor Air International — a tobacco front operation]

Organising Committee:

• Benito R Reverente
• Fengsheng He
• Yoon Shin Kim
• George B Leslie
• Sarah Liao
• Malinee Wongphanich

See Page 2

1991 Nov 18: [Invoice dated Dec 11.] George Leslie at ARIA is billing John Rupp (C&B) for a 14 day trip to Thailand and Hong Kong on business for the new Asian Pacific Association for IAQ (APAIAQ) (Total of $8250).

    This was the consultant front organisation which had been set up for the Asian WhiteCoats. APAIAQ was a total WhiteCoat front group, populated by cash-for-comment amateurs

[Don't confuse it with ARTIST which was a slightly-more-transparent organization of professional scientists (both academic and employed) who were doing both legitimate research on tobacco while often also serving as consultants to the tobacco industry in Asia.]

1993: John Rupp at Covington & Burling. Proposal for Regional Recommendation and Funding Requirements.He wants money for further recruitment — Japan, Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Taiwan. — 12 to 14 scientists — $175,000 [29 pages]

[This would be another Covington & Burling's proposal to the tobacco industry (Note: no letterhead)]

• For Region in general:
  Recruitment, Newsletter, Training, Living and Travelling expenses and legal fees $420,000
• Hong Kong:
  Recruitment 1 or 2 scientists.
  Dr [Sarah] Liao to be encouraged to obtain a Consumer Council grant for restaurant air quality study. — $95,000 + $75,000 for other activities suggested
• Indonesia:
        Publication [proceedings] of the IAQ seminar under the banner of the University of Jakarta (and distribute to government departments and media)
        Recruitment - 1) scientist with academic position in a prestigious university. 2) occupational hygienist 3) IAQ office study 4) create ASHRAE chapter — $105,000
• Japan:
        (A) Recruitment — two or three additional consultants
        (B) Distribute Modern Medicine and Round Table Monograph
        (C) APACT Response - press office/scientific consultants
        (D) TIOJ Spokespereson.
        (E - N) misc — $200,000
• Korea:
  Recruitment - Physician or health related scientis + Air monitoring expert.
        IAQ Study sponsored through Institute of Environmental and industrial Medicine
        Kim Retainer - Sponsored in return for monthly reports — $12,000 pa [probably Yoon Shin Kim of Hanyan Uni]
        Journal of the Institute of Environmental and Industrial Medicine subsidy
        Environmental Health Priority Study by Dr Cha Chul-Whan (head of Inst. of Environmental Health, Korea University) and Dr Eung Bai Shin (Dept of Civil Engineering, Hanyang)
        ASHRAE/SAREK place Dr Baek on a retainer and ask him to join and be active in SAREK ($10,000) TOTAL $207,000
• Malaysia:
  Recruitment - A new scientist associated with presigious university.
        Dr [Heng Juat] Lim or industry to distribute material.
        ASHRAE. Dr Lim to become active if exists, or to consider ways to set up an ASHRAE chapter in Malaysia
        HBI studies, and Misc — $185,000
• Singapore:
  Dr Quah as an abserver at Tokyo Round Table
        Quah to be retained to monitor ETS developments and to join and energize local ASHRAE chapter.
        1994 Seminar to publicize Dr Lee's studies ($80,000) — Total $152,000
• Taiwan:
  Recruitment - two scientists
        Other... Environmental health priorities report; Indoor air seminar organized by IAI or JIARS ($80,000); HBI study ($60,000); HBI contact with ventilation company ($10,000)
        Public attitude study sponsored by TIROC — $360,000
• Thailand:
        Recruitment - Two scientific/medical consultations.
        Formation of a National Growers Association and Tobacco Documentation Center
        Distribute monograph from Bangkok indoor air symposium
        IAQ study sponsored by CIAR — $110,000

TOTAL overall $1,484,000 (Does not include China of the Philippines which are still being developed)

1999 Jan 18: /E The anti-smoking ASH publication "Conspiracy: Industry Plants Scientist... from The Cigarette Papers." has a detailed expose of John Rupp, Linda Koo and Sarah Liao and how they worked for the tobacco industry.

    It also explains how the Philip Morris-controlled McGill University ETS Conference was used by the industry to create the impression that the majority of scientists were 'tobacco deniers' and that the state of the science hadn't yet proved that smoking caused disease.

1999 Jan 18: Epilogue:
    The Hong Kong Environmental Protection Department commissioned a study into the tobacco documents in 1995, but then appear to have done nothing with the information they gathered. Then, in 1999, the Hong Kong newspapers picked up the story of the Asian WhiteCoats from Stanton Glanz book, "The Cigarette Papers".

    This results in a formal inquiry in Hong Kong, with Sarah Liao and Dr Bacon-Shone denying that they knew the tobacco industry was funding their project. Which means they were either dishonest or extremely stupid.

See the articles which expose the project.

CONTRIBUTORS:Jb22 ent2 TRMU