Association for Research in Indoor Air

This article is part of the Tobacco portal on Sourcewatch funded from 2006 - 2009 by the American Legacy Foundation.

This article is part of the Center for Media & Democracy's spotlight on front groups and corporate spin.

Association for Research in Indoor Air (and the variations on this name) was set up by tobacco industry lawyers Covington & Burling as camouflage for the industry consultants Professor Roger Perry, George Leslie, Francis J. C. Roe, and Frank Lanau. It's purpose was primarily to act as a cut-out for funding Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) seminars, research, and IAQ publications.

It is best known by its initials ARIA.

Tobacco industry documents

This document describes a presentation made in a restaurant in 1988 to British tobacco company representatives to get their buy-in to Philip Morris' Whitecoat Project. The paper describes how PM first set up and then distanced itself from a group of scientists they pulled together in Europe (which they named ARIA, for Association for Research on Indoor Air). It also reveals how PM concealed the group's tobacco-industry funding using their legal firm, Covington and Burling, as a fence. That the group was organized for a purpose other than research is given away in the line that says, "It was still being discussed whether the Group will undertake some research (as might be suggested by their title)."

Title A Presentation by Aria Green's Restaurant, London: 25th October 1988
Per. Author Christopher J. Proctor
Date 19881031/e (October 31, 1988)
Type Report, outline
Bates No. 400974548/4550
URL: http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/guc54a99

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