Writer and philosopher Roger Scruton, who was discovered last week to be on the payroll of a large tobacco company, has admitted that he should have “declared an interest” when he wrote a pamphlet attacking the World Health Organization for its campaign against tobacco.
He told the BMJ:“Our firm had a consultancy [with Japan Tobacco Industries] at that time. I was asked independently to do this [write the pamphlet]. I did not want to mix it up with the consultancy, but looking back I should have declared an interest.”
As a result of Mr Scruton's fall from grace last week, when his financial connections to Japan Tobacco Industries were revealed, the Institute of Economic Affairs—the free-market think tank that published the pamphlet attacking the WHO—has conceded that it needs an author's declaration policy.
Colin Robinson, the institute's editorial director and a professor of economics at the University of Surrey, said that the past few days had represented something of a steep learning curve for those in the field of social science academia.
“In the past we have relied on our authors to come forward with any competing interests, but that is going to change,” said Professor Robinson. “In scientific publishing I suppose this sort of thing has been a problem before, but the news of Roger Scruton has made us realise that this kind of thing can happen to us too, and we are developing a policy to ensure it doesn't happen again.”
In his pamphlet, WHO, What and Why, Mr Scruton attacked the WHO for tackling tobacco when in his view it should have been concentrating on vaccination campaigns and diseases such as malaria and HIV/AIDS. His attack was immediately repeated in articles in the Wall Street Journal, the Times,and the Scotsman, in what looked like a concerted pro-tobacco campaign (BMJ 2000;320:1482).
Clive Bates, director of the antismoking campaign group Action on Smoking and Health, criticised the institute over its poor track record and said that a policy for authors to declare their financial and other interests was long overdue.
The news that Mr Scruton, who used to be a professor of aesthetics at Birkbeck College, London, had been receiving a monthly fee from Japan Tobacco Industries was revealed in the Guardian last week when it published a leaked email from him to the company (24 January, p 1).
In the email, Mr Scruton, who had been receiving a monthly retainer fee of £4500 ($6300; €7300), asked for a £1000 a month pay rise to place more pro-smoking articles in prestigious newspapers and international magazines. He declared the amount to be “good value for money in a business largely conducted by shysters and sharks.”
He said that he would aim to place an article every two months in one or other of the Wall Street Journal, the Times, the Telegraph, the Spectator, the Financial Times, the Economist, the Independent, and the New Statesman.
The email, which was sent last October in the name of Sophie, Mr Scruton's wife and business partner, reveals a far-reaching and ambitious public relations strategy to make smoking seem less harmful than it is and criticise government policies on advertising as an attack on civil liberties.
It says: “I personally would like to see more explicit mention of other products open to the same criticisms as tobacco and which ought to be of equal concern to the WHO. For example, fast-food of the McDonald's variety, which seems to be addictive, is aimed at the young, is a serious risk to health, with a worse effect on life-expectancy than cigarettes, and unlike cigarettes, has a seriously corrosive effect on social relations and family life.”
Last week, following the revelations, the Financial Times ended Scruton's contract as a columnist.
Mr Scruton told the BMJ: “The pamphlet for the Institute of Economic Affairs arose out of my longstanding concerns about the way in which legislative powers are being transferred from sovereign bodies to unaccountable transnational institutions.
“The pamphlet is a review of arguments and not concerned to exonerate tobacco from the accusation that it is a risky product. In retrospect, however, I now see that I should have declared an interest.”
To read the email and other background see www.ask.org.uk
Figure.
SIJMEN HENDRIKS
Roger Scruton told Japan Tobacco that he was “good value for money”