- Giuseppe Lo Jacono- Corporate Corruption of Science

An Italian professor of hygiene at the University of Perugia, Rome, who was a surreptitious worker for the tobacco industry. He reported on various conferences, identified likely prospects, advised on political policies, and snooped on the activities of the scientists doing work for the IARC (International Agency for Research on Cancer) and the WHO.

Professor Giuseppe Lo Jacono (also spelled Lojacono) was a professor of public health at the Department of Hygiene, University of Perugia in Italy. He had many useful contacts with the WHO and its research arm, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).
He made contact with Philip Morris in December 1988 through a visit to the Neuchatel headquarters of the FTR, the Smoking & Health group in Europe, run by Helmut Gaisch.
Clearly he was recruited, because he began to turn in reports on scientific conferences, and advise them on the research activities of the IARC which was running a major multi-center project on the health implications of ETS (passive smoking). Professor Lo Jacono later died of lung-cancer.

Some key documents

1988 Dec 12: His first meeting with Gaisch of Philip Morris Europe. He is Professor of Hygiene, University of Perugia, The report of the meeting says: "The Professor has good contacts with the WHO in Geneva and also the IARC in Lyon. He knows both Dr NAKASHIMA, the General Director of the WHO...and the head of the IARC. " [The industry at this time was intensely interested in what the IARC was doing about a major ETS tobacco smoke study, and he is being willingly recruited to act as a spy.
The Monthly Report of Gaisch notes:

They are sniffing each other out. Lo Jacono signals to the tobacco scientist that he disagrees with the US Surgeon General's anti-smoking report [a sure sign that he is open for an approach], and Gaisch gives him some literature references which is an obvious invitation to engage in further discussion which allows him to make an open expression of pro-smoking opinions. They are both agreeing to keep in contact.

1989 June 1: The Professor is now working through SCR Associati (PR Services) under the guidance of Florence Catisglioni. He has prepared a scientific report on recent Venice seminar (in May). He is on the payroll of Philip Morris as a 'Whitecoat'.

His report here outlines position of various institutions and individuals as well as providing some comments on the Venice seminar. There must have been another more specific Venice seminar report also.

1989 Aug 8: — His name is on an early McGill University ETS symposium list - This is Philip Morris's possible speakers agenda. This conference was set up under cover by Philip Morris, and it was totally 'closed' — both participants and speakers were all in the pay of the industry. Its purpose was to produce a reference document exonerating ETS as a health hazard through publishing the highly-loaded 'conference proceedings', and also to generate press releases saying that these scientists all agreed that passive smoking wasn't a problem.

1989 Sep 21: Here he is replying to Dr B. Van Groningen, an in-house scientist with BAT in Germany: He says he is editor of the Italian scientific journal
"Epidemiologia e Prevenzione".
He explains that Italian epidemiologists have found "Numerous risk factors" which produce "the same effects attributed to ETS". Therefore, this " peculiarity of Italian epidemiology [] can be used for our purposes."

1989 Sept 28.: His name is now on the McGill ETS conference Finalised Agenda. Every person named on this list is a known scientist in the pay of the tobacco industry.

Note, This list was typed on the same day as the so-called 'invitation letter' which was sent out to provide cover for those in academia). The agenda is finalised BEFORE the scientists-speakers are officially invited.

See also confirmations

1989 Sep 29: He is provising information to the ZHC, which was a group of tobacco consultants who operated under this logo.

The ZHC was the Italian 'ARIA' - a front for a group of tobacco consultants. It was run by Toni Muzi Falconi (President of the Center for Documentation & Information on Tobacco), with Florence Castiglioni and Paolo Ferrari of the SCR Associati PR Agency in support.

1989 Nov 3 - 4: He is a speaker and panelist at the notorious McGill ETS conference.

1990 Oct 31: He is dealing with Iancou Marcovitch, a science 'controller' (Vice President S&T) at FTR in Neuchatel ( Philip Morris's European headquarters). He appears to be offering a report on a medical conference.

1991: He was still reporting back to INFOTAB (the International arm of the Tobacco Institute) about IARC developments. (Ong 37)

1991 March 13-14: He is provided Philip Morris with a three page detailed memo on the IARC research group's informal meeting at Broussel Hospital in Paris. A WHO report in 1999 into the organisation's infiltration by tobacco spies, says that he provided a great deal of info about IARC study to Philip Morris, and worked for them for many years while keeping his ties to tobacco secret

1994 Oct 6: - 8:His "Healthy Indoor Air" international conference is being held at Anacapri, Italy.(Capri) The emphasis was on workplace smoking and Sick Building Syndrome. This appears to be the first. Professor Lo Jacono appears on the Organizing Committee (there is no reason to doubt the credentials of the others here).

1998 June 2: He is still active running some seminars in Italy. He uses the seminar name Healthy Indoor Air (eg, HIA'94)

1999 Feb 26: He is listed here also as the "President of the University" (probably a mistake). He is still at the Medical and Hygiene School of the University of Perugia runnin seminars on Healthy Indoor Air.

1999 Nov: Elisa K Ong, working with Stanford Glanz, fingered Lo Jacono in her thesis on the Tobacco Industry Efforts Subverting the IARC's Second Hand Smoke Study.

2000: A WHO report looking into how its operations had been subverted, expanded on Ong's evidence.

Italy

Giuseppe Lo Jacono

(aka Lojacono)

Some key documents