BMJ retracts article after discovery of indirect funding by Philip Morris International

On June 20, 2023, the scientific publisher BMJ Open retracted an article led by a Polish researcher after the researcher disclosed that he had been funded by the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World, an organization funded by Philip Morris International. The publisher claims this information was withheld from it.

"This article has been retracted by the journal and its publisher following a post-publication review of funding sources. This article violates BMJ Open's policy of not publishing any research funded by the tobacco industry, which has led us to retract it." This is the statement that appears at the opening of the explanation page provided after the withdrawal, on June 20, 2023, of the article entitled International randomized controlled trial evaluating metabolic syndrome in type 2 diabetic cigarette smokers following switching to combustion-free nicotine delivery systems: the DIASMOKE protocol and first signed by Arkadiusz Krysinski, a Polish scientist[1].

An indirect link of interest with PMI, revealed late

In their defense, BMJ Open and its editor Adrian Aldcroft explained that the article had initially been reported as being funded by ECLAT, a group from the University of Catania that had not particularly caught their attention. It was only in a post-publication query that the authors revealed that the funds received from ECLAT came from the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World (FSW), a facade group created and fully funded by Philip Morris International (PMI). Unaware of this connection in advance and faced with a fait accompli at an advanced stage of publication, BMJ Open had no option but to withdraw the article in question, issuing an explanatory statement.

BMJ Open was unable to obtain an explanation from Arkadiusz Krysinski, but reported that FSW had already been implicated in previous retractions of scientific articles, such as the one published in July 2020 by Theodoros Giannouchos, José M. Mier, Konstantinos Poulas and Konstantinos Farsalinos.[2].

Riccardo Polosa was one of the authors of the article

A closer look at the list of signatories to the article should have alerted the editor: it notably includes Riccardo Polosa, one of the most prolific authors on electronic cigarettes.

Riccardo Polosa's work at the University of Catania's Center of Excellence for the Acceleration of Harm Reduction (CoEHAR) has been particularly criticized for being largely funded by FSW. Polosa also received direct funding from e-cigarette manufacturer JUUL in 2020, when tobacco company Altria was a shareholder in the group, but also from British American Tobacco (BAT) in 2018, PMI in 2017/2018, and Philip Morris USA from 2003 to 2005.[3]He is also a Special Scientific Advisor to the International Network of Nicotine Consumer Organizations (INNCO), a third-party network established and funded by FSW.

Riccardo Polosa has collaborated with numerous scientists linked to the tobacco industry and has participated in several editions of the Global Tobacco and Nicotine Forum, the annual international gathering of tobacco manufacturers. However, he has often lacked transparency in his declarations of conflicts of interest, spontaneously citing funding received from the pharmaceutical industry (GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, Boehringer-Ingelheim) or the vaping industry, but neglecting to mention his ties to the tobacco industry.

Ricardo Polosa also continues to serve as chief scientific advisor to the Italian Anti-Tobacco League (LIAF), of which he was a long-time president. He also sits on the European Technical Committee for Standardization on Requirements and Test Methods for Emissions of Electronic Cigarettes (CEN/TC 437; WG4), which advises European institutions on the toxicity of e-cigarettes.

Keywords: BMJ Open, article retraction, Arkadiusz Krysinski, Riccardo Polosa, ECLAT, FSW, PMI.

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[1] BMJ journal retracts e-cigarette paper after authors disclose tobacco industry funding late in the process, Retraction Watch, published June 30, 2023, accessed July 4, 2023.

[2] 'Unfair and unsubstantiated': Journal retracts paper suggesting smoking is linked to lower COVID-19 risk, Retraction Watch, published April 21, 2021, accessed July 4, 2023.

[3] Riccardo Polosa, Tobacco Tactics, updated February 10, 2021, accessed July 4, 2023.