Big Tobacco Turns Over a New Leaf

No, not marijuana.  Philip Morris is getting to the inhalable drugs business (sub-req'd):

A team of Philip Morris engineers and scientists is working on a new design for a hand-held inhaler to treat a variety of ailments, including smoking-related lung disease. The product, called Aria, arose from a failed effort to invent a safer cigarette alternative.

The initiative, sparked by the company's need to hedge against declines in smoking, has thrust Philip Morris across the battle lines of the war between the tobacco industry and public-health advocates. Longtime foes of the nation's No. 1 cigarette maker are suddenly grappling with an unfamiliar question: Should Philip Morris be treated as a force for good?

"A new device is badly needed," says James F. Donohue, chief of the division of pulmonary and critical care at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, who sits on the medical advisory boards of 16 drug companies. "But there's so much mistrust between the medical world and the tobacco industry. People are going to ask whether this device is an attempt by Philip Morris to undo all the damage the company did to the public health."

Not surprisingly, politics and mistrust may get in their way:

Because of the corporate reorganization, Dr. Byron now finds himself on the wrong side of the rules of some widely read medical journals. Contributors to the Proceedings of the American Thoracic Society, for example, must certify that "no part of the research...has been funded by tobacco industry sources." That publication carried some of Dr. Byron's work last December, when Chrysalis was a unit of Altria, not Philip Morris. Dr. Byron says he will still be able to get his work published in other publications, such as the Journal of Aerosol Medicine, which don't have such policies. The editor of that publication declined to comment.

It's disturbing that the medical community would have such arbitrary rules.  Presumably, the validity of research can and should be judged on its merits not on financial affiliation.  The concern is understandable, but if they are unable look at a study and decide whether it's legitimate or not, then this would cast doubt on all of the work that gets published, no?

Ultimately, it would seem that the companies who have exhaustively studied lung-mechanics, and oral-administration of substances, should be as well-qualified as any other drug-maker to make advances in this field.

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集英社（東京都千代田区）が隔週で発行する漫画雑誌「グランドジャンプ」に連載中の料理漫画「ダシマスター」に登場する背景や食材などの絵の中に、ウェブサイト上の写真画像に類似したものがあることが分かった。現在事実関係の確認を進めており、今月２１日発売の第３号から、当面の間、同作品を休載する。

　ティンバーランドグランドジャンプは「ビジネスジャンプ」と「スーパージャンプ」を統合し、１１月１６日に創刊されたばかり。ダシマスターは平成２１年９月にビジネスジャンプで連載を開始。６巻まで単行本が発売され、累計発行部数は１５万６千部。