In October 2006, Dr. Claudia Henschke of Weill Cornell Medical College roiled the cancer world with a study saying that 80 percent of lung cancer deaths could be prevented through widespread use of CT scans.
Small print at the end of the study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, noted that it was financed in part by a little-known charity, the Foundation for Lung Cancer: Early Detection, Prevention & Treatment.
But tax records show that the foundation was underwritten almost entirely by $3.6 million in grants from the parent company of cigarette maker Liggett Group.
Dr. Jeffrey Drazen, editor in chief of the medical journal, said he was surprised. “In the seven years that I’ve been here, we have never knowingly published anything supported by” a cigarette-maker, Drazen said.
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A spokesman for Liggett’s parent company said it had “no control or influence over the research.”
In an e-mail, Henschke and her longtime collaborator Dr. David Yankelevitz wrote that the foundation no longer accepts grants from tobacco companies.