In the wake of PMI’s Vectura acquisition, international respiratory societies have banned researchers associated with tobacco companies from publishing papers in their journals, reports nature.com.

When Philip Morris International (PMI) took over pharmaceutical company Vectura last year, the response from health bodies, including the American Thoracic Society (ATS), the European Respiratory Society and the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases, amongst others, described the move as “highly unethical and inappropriate”.
Respiratory societies across the globe had already banned any researchers directly funded by tobacco companies from publishing papers in their journals and now the band has been extended to researchers working for firms belonging to tobacco companies, reports nature.com.
Gregory Downey, a pulmonologist at the University of Colorado Denver and president-elect of the ATS said the fact that Vectura had been producing drugs to treat asthma and smoking-related respiratory illnesses and was now owned by a tobacco company was “the ultimate conflict of interest.”
In response, Moira Gilchrist, vice-president of strategic and scientific communications at PMI in Lausanne, Switzerland, said the company would not misuse Vectura’s technology and criticized the ban on researchers.
“We openly welcome and encourage legitimate critique and debate about our business transformation, but when this morphs into actively ostracizing scientists and attempting to prevent the prescribing of proven medicines for patients, we should pause and think of the implications,” she said.