Evidence of Potential Tobacco Industry Influence in Tobacco Regulatory Science

A May 2021 special issue[1] of the American Journal of Health Behavior (AJHB) on JUUL consisted of 13 articles with 12 including authors who were employees of JUUL Labs; all articles reported at least one author with funding from the tobacco industry. JUUL is an electronic cigarette device that holds the greatest market share[2] and is the most popular device among youth.[3] The research reported in the issue was “designed to provide the US Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Tobacco Products with the information it needs and has requested to judge whether a product is appropriate for the protection of public health” per Drs. Eric Auguston and Saul Shiffman.[4] JUUL paid $51,000 for the special open-access issue according to the New York Times.[5] While such engagement with the industry may be acceptable under AJHB policies, it also raises a concern that funding from the tobacco industry may have been benefiting the then editor in chief of Tobacco Regulatory Science (TRS) through a company owned by his spouse. Tobacco Regulatory Science positioned itself as a key journal for publishing evidence designed to help governments across the globe implement science-based regulation of tobacco products. Its origins stem in part from a lack of outlets for publishing results from the influx of U.S. Food and Drug Administration funding for tobacco regulatory science research.[6] Tobacco Regulatory Science has been utilized by early-career and well-established investigators in tobacco prevention and control, and the authors of this Industry Watch article have a combined six papers in TRS.

At the time of the special issue, the two journals shared an editor in chief, Elbert D. Glover.[7, 8] (Elbert D. Glover has since retired according to the New York Times.[5]) According to public records from the North Carolina (NC) Secretary of State,[9] the then publisher of AJHB, PNG Publications, is a limited liability corporation (LLC) owned by Penny N. Glover and lists the same mailing address at a Mailboxes & More store in Oak Ridge, NC, as the Tobacco Regulatory Science Group Ltd. LLC, which was the publisher of TRS.[9] Elbert D. Glover, Penny N. Glover, and Scott J. Leischow owned the Tobacco Regulatory Science Group according to public filings with the NC Secretary of State.[9] Both limited liability corporations are listed as for-profit companies in NC.[9] Elbert D. and Penny N. Glover are married according to the TRS web site.[10]

Funds paid by the tobacco industry for papers in AJHB were benefitting the wife of the editor in chief of TRS as she owned the publishing group that controlled AJHB at the time of the JUUL special issue.[9] Tobacco Regulatory Science has a policy precluding profit for the editor in chief from tobacco industry funded publication fees and a policy stating, “no person(s) who receives funding directly or indirectly by a tobacco company will serve as reviewers or editors … out of recognition that they represent the industry being regulated,”[11] (emphasis added). The same policy is not present on the AJHB web page. This -- at minimum -- appearance of a conflict of interest should concern authors publishing tobacco regulatory science research and governments relying on evidence published in TRS. To our knowledge, no disclosure of this relationship existed on the TRS web site.

The tobacco industry has long attempted to undermine science and used its resources to influence the scientific process.[12, 13] Other researchers have recently identified potential tobacco industry influence on scientific papers in several journals through the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World.[14] Guidance on the implementation of Article 5.3 of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control notes “fundamental and irreconcilable conflict between the tobacco industry’s interests and public health policy interests.”[15] Additionally, the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse’s (NIDA’s) National Advisory Council on Drug Abuse advises “that the interests of the tobacco industry have been fundamentally incompatible with the scientific goals and public health mission of NIDA” and “[a]ny connection between tobacco-industry supported research (or tobacco industry scientists) and NIDA could negatively impact NIDA’s credibility and the public’s trust in NIDA-funded research.”[16] Authors should take note of this when selecting journals for publication of evidence used for regulating the tobacco industry. Members of editorial boards should also consider any connection between tobacco-industry supported research and their service.