Lerner's early ties to tobacco proved lucrative

By SYDNEY P. FREEDBERG
Published June 17, 2007

Richard Lerner was ahead of the curve when it came to mingling science with market.

In the 1970s, Lerner sought and got grants from the Council for Tobacco Research, a group created by Philip Morris.

It laid the foundation for a long and lucrative relationship between Scripps scientists and big tobacco - forged at a time that cigarette makers were challenging a growing body of scientific evidence that linked cancer and smoking.

Since 1980, Scripps has said, its scientists, including Lerner, got $2.2-million in research funds from the tobacco industry.

In addition, Philip Morris paid Lerner and another top scientist at Scripps, Gerald Edelman, about $700, 000 each in consulting fees between 1992 and 2002. The compensation was reported in the Palm Beach Post in 2004.

Lerner says his goal was to help the company, which makes Marlboros and Virginia Slims, do better science and create safer products. He advised Philip Morris on a product recall and proposed that the firm spend $225-million to create a research institute.

"They wanted to build it for all the right purposes, in my opinion, " Lerner said.

Lerner says tobacco money and other corporate funds in no way sway Scripps' research. "In all the years I've been doing this, I've never had a company official ask me to bend scientific research, " he said.

Some institutions now shun research grants from tobacco makers. Would Lerner accept the money today? He might, he says, if he thought it would serve "an important medical need."

[Last modified June 17, 2007, 01:16:51]