Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education

A July 2000 report of an independent committee of experts outlined a number of ways in which the tobacco industry had attempted to undermine WHO tobacco control efforts in recent decades. One such method of subverting tobacco control involved the industry’s funding of and involvement in seemingly unbiased scientific groups to manipulate political and scientific debate concerning tobacco and health. This paper presents a brief chronology of the industry’s relations with one such group, the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI), between 1983 and 1998. Findings indicate that ILSI was used by certain tobacco companies to thwart tobacco control policies. Senior office bearers in ILSI were directly involved in these actions.