ARIA

See also Document Index

ARIA (Doc. Index)

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.

The Associates for Research on Indoor Air (ARIA) and its associated organization, Indoor Air International (IAI) were both comprised of tobacco-funded, "independent" scientific consultants and Whitecoats who used these organizations as front groups. The name of the organization is occasionally seen in the documents as "Associates for Research in Indoor Air." The purpose of the organization was to offer consulting services to governments and companies on the issue of indoor air quality

The international tobacco industry law firm Covington & Burling created these structures to provide a legal barrier against discovery; it both concealed any direct links between the tobacco companies and the moonlighting academic consultants and it provided them with a way to launder their payments. The details of their activities in this regard are clearly outlined in a memo from John Rupp of Covington & Burling to Philip Morris in New York, early in 1990.

ARIA was one of the tobacco industry's most successful covert operations because it provided cover for some of their most active consultants, and it set the pattern for further development of these organizations. It provided cover and cut-out operations in a couple of different ways:

• it laundered payments passing from the tobacco industry to the consultants;
• it transfered payments to Swiss and other bank accounts;
• it issued general brochures which established a legitimacy to the operations;
• it allowed the tobacco consultants to pretend that they provided general indoor air quality consulting services, and were not therefore tobacco lackeys.

Initially, ARIA was entirely funded and controlled by Philip Morris, but in an attempt at company cooperation and collaboration, in November 1989, British American Tobacco was invited to contribute. ARIA also had an offshoot "scientific organization" known as "Indoor Air International" (IAI), and a Swiss-based "International Association for Indoor Air Quality." All were actually part of the same tobacco-funded group.

History

ARIA was established in 1988 by lawyer John Rupp of the tobacco industry's New York/London based legal firm Covington & Burling It was ultimately under the control of Andrew J Whist and Mary Pottorff of Philip Morris International's Corporate Affairs division in New York, and run in Europe by:

• Professor Roger Perry of Imperial College London,
• Francis J. C. Roe, a prominent toxicologist, who was known within the industry as the "main whitecoat in Europe"
• George Leslie, a freelance ex-pharmaceutical consultant who ran a small firm, BioAssays Ltd.

This threesome had a long and fruitful working relationship with the tobacco industry in the United Kingdom.

• Frank Lunau later took over some of the administration when George Leslie was active in other parts of the world.

ARIA had no staff, and was operated by lawyers and the top three or four consultants. It provided invoicing and check laundering services for its members. and it was also able to generate consulting work in industries not directly related to tobacco. This was important because it provided members with a defense against the charge that they were "tobacco consultants." Through ARIA they theoretically performed general consulting work for a whole range of industries.

However the organization was funded by, and primarily run for, tobacco industry work.

Offshoots

ARIA generated its own offshoot, a 'scientific society - conference organisation', called Indoor Air International (IAI) which ran seminars, conferences, etc. and had its own 'peer-reviewed scientific journal' (Air International) and newsletter (Airmail), all funded by tobacco. The IAI was nominally under the control of another fictitious organization, known as International Association for Indoor Air Quality, which was also registered in Switzerland, where access to corporate records is notoriously difficult.

A 1990 memo from the international tobacco industry's main legal firm, Covington & Burling, which headed the "European Consultancy Program," (a euphemism for the recruitment of Whitecoats) boasted that:

"Our consultants have created the world's only learned scientific society (Indoor Air International) addressing questions of indoor air quality ...."

"Our EC [Economic Community] consultants have formed a consulting group called ARIA (Association for Research in Indoor Air) ... "

"One of our consultants is an editor of this very influential British medical journal, and is continuing to publish numerous reviews, editorials and comments on ETS or Environmental Tobacco Smoke and other issues ..."

"One consultant is, for example, the advisor to a particularly relevant committee of the House of Commons."

The last two references are to Professor Perry who ran the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Technology Letters with another AIRA member P. W. W. Kirk, and was the chief adviser to the House of Commons Environment Committee.

Indoor Air International (IAI)

The IAI was Swiss registered and controlled by the same Whitecoats who ran ARIA. See page 12 It also had an alternative name used in some of its publications, International Association for Indoor Air Quality (IAIAQ).

A Philip Morris monthly highlights report by scientific employee Helmut Gaisch gives an explanation of the organizations origins, under the caption "IAQ Consultants":

The purpose of the creation of such an organisation is to provide a scientific "home" for the wide range of disciplines involved in IAQ, in order to make sure that independent scientists can identify with a professional organisation and do not have to resort to giving vague explanations as to whom they are associated with.
The legal form of the organisation should be an association under Swiss Civil Law. At present, the following name is envisaged: "Indoor Air International - Internation [sic] Association for Indoor Air Quality".

The consultants plan for the association to be constituted at the October meeting of ARIA. C&B [Covington & Burling] are currently working on drafting the statutes for the future association. Given the high class of expertise presently contained in ARIA, this future international association can be trusted to gain considerable reputation and thus fulfil the expectations of its founders.

IAI's activities included:

• publication of books, conference proceedings, etc.
• running numerous seminars and conferences around the world
• established a monthly scientific journal
• established a newsletter, "Indoor Air International"

All attempts were made to broaden the subject of environmental tobacco smoke into a larger problem of Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) by including such subjects as house-mite dust, Sick Building Syndrome, and Legionella, asbestos, pesticides, etc.

Whitecoats organization

Philip Morris used ARIA as a test case in establishing a series of Whitecoats and ETS consulting organiztions around the world. It was also the foundation for the McGill University Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS) Symposium which provided a training ground for these science-for-sale operators, as was the Lisbon Warm Climates Conference soon after. The main ARIA-style whitecoat organizations are:

• Indoor Air Pollution Advisory Group (IAPAG) and the Center for Environmental Health and Human Toxicology (CEHHT) in the USA - both based at Georgetown University, Washington D.C. In 1986 they had a core group of 10, and overall more than 20 scientists.National Academy of Sciences Passive Smoking Hearing Chilcote SD. Tobacco Institute. Memo. January 30, 1986. Bates No.TIDN0004490/4492</ref>
• ARIA and IAI in the UK, with links into Europe. In 1988 they had recruited 14 - 16 scientists. ETS Strategy in the Philip Morris EEC Region Philip Morris report. Author unknown. August 9, 1988. Bates No. 2028364722/4728</ref>
• EGIL in Scandinavia had ten scientists in 1991, but collapsed in 1992 Malmfors Consulting Malmfors T. Letter. October 28, 1992. Philip Morris Bates No. 2028398180/8182</ref>
• ARTIST and APTRC in Asia had about 20 - 25 members (See ARTIST).

THE SHAM AIR-EXPERT ASSOCIATIONS
The tobacco industry recruited academic and some general consulting scientists as ETS consultants. The only qualification needed was a willingness to work for the tobacco industry, and the ability to lie about qualifications and their independence. After recruitment, they were trained in the basics so they had some semblance of expertise in the field of Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) measurements or Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS) health concerns and the consequences of smoking. They only needed enough to bamboozle politicians at inquiries, or avoid significant media scrutiny. These freshmen-'experts' needed to be given manufactured citations and other pseudo-scientific credentials. The most obvious technique was to list them as speaker of discussants at scientific conference on indoor air pollution, and ensure that this was published in the proceedings. This was easy to arrange because the tobacco industry conducted sham closed-conferences fairly regularly with of its own mercenary scientists -- and they always published the proceedings as if they were genuine scientific publications (often in more than one langage). At these conferences, the neophytes would be submerged with a group of like-minded mercenary academics and then installed inone of the industry's specialist pseudo-scientific associations. Membership of these (by-invitation-only) associations added to the WhiteCoats' standing in the scientific community, and the system allowed other well-paid members to 'peer-review' any research they might do for the industry. The organisations were well-funded and controlled through the lawyers Covington & Burling and were generally known by their initials:
IAPAG CEHHT	Indoor Air Pollution Advisory Group set up within the Pharmacy Department of Georgetown University by Sorell Schwartz, Nancy Balter, and Philip Witorsch. IAPAG had a subsidiary (actually created earlier) called the CEHHT Center for Environmental Health and Human Toxicology (established 1982) provided literature collection services and providing testimony at legislative and regulatory hearings. It also acted as a laundry channel for payments and for specified research grants until 2000.[1]
ARIA	Associates for Research on Indoor Air. This was the main pseudo-association in the UK and Europe. It was founded by Professor Roger Perry (Imperial College) and a freelance consultant George B Leslie who ran it with the help of his wife. Professor Francis Roe was also a prominent member and Frank Lunau became its President.. Leslie and Perry became the major recruiters for the tobacco industry globally.
IAI	Indoor Air International was an offshoot of ARIA run by Lanau, Leslie and his wife. It established itself as the organiser or co-organiser of so-called scientific conferences on air pollution/indoor air quality (IAQ) and environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) around the world. It also had its own scientific journal.
ISBE	International Society of the Built Environment this is little more than a name-change from IAI - its successor. It was still an offshoot of ARIA run by George B Leslie and it organised so-called scientific conferences on IAQ and ETS.[2] In defending the Racketeering (RICO) Case the legal argument for the defense was that the ISBE had not been identified in the MSA, and therefore it could continue to operate. Unlike the CTR and Tobacco Institute it didn't need to be dissolved under the MSA agreement.[3]
EGIL	Swedish for "Experts on Indoor Air". This was created by Roger Perry and ARIA for the Scandinavian tobacco industry. George Leslie used this pseudo-scientific association when recruiting in Scandinavia. It was under the control of Tors Malfors (aka Sven Eric Torbjørn Malmfors) who was a professor in toxicology at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. EGIL eventually disbanded when members began to fight others over who had the rights to rip-off some clients.
EMIES	Eastern Mediterranean Indoor Environment Society run by Professor Aly Massoud of the Ain Sham University, Cairo
ARTIST	Asian Regional Tobacco Industry Science Team This was the later name given to APAIAQ-- and it broke up in 1992. Later it was revived as a different type of organisation with employed tobacco scientists. Some members were toxicologist consultants, paid by the industry in some way.
APAIAQ	Asian Pacific Association for Indoor Air Quality was the first academic Asian WhiteCoats association. It was run by EHS Consultancy's Sarah Liao and Philip Morris's Donald S Harris in Hong Kong, and later became ARTIST. It was initially called the Asian ETS Project run by John Rupp of C&B.
AAOH SCIA	The Standing Committee on Indoor Air was created by Malinee Wongphanich and Benito Reverente (both Asian WhiteCoats) who were successive presidents of the Asian Association for Occupational Health (AAOH). They used this Standing-Committee of AAOH to hide the payments for some Asian WhiteCoats.
APTRC	The Asia Pacific Tobacco Research Conference was put together in 2001, well after the Master Settlement Agreement. It was set up by the Swiss executives of Philip Morris (at FTR), using the company's Hong Kong branch: it ran a conference in Korea in 2002.

Articles and resources

• Elisa Ong's thesis on the tobacco industry subversion of the World Heath Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer program.Tobacco Industry Efforts Subverting the International Agency for Research on Cancer's Secondhand Smoke Study 1999. Bates No. 2505646201/6309.
• Action on Smoking and Health report giving relevant quotes from tobacco documents

External articles

<tdo archive = "us,uk"<ARIA confidential</tdo>