A Cigarette Manufacturer and a Managed Care Company Collaborate to Censor Health Information Targeted at Employees

• Published in: American journal of public health (1971) 2004-08, Vol.94 (8), p.1307-1311
• Main Authors: Muggli, Monique E, Hurt, Richard D
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Accreditation; Asthma; Bioethics; Biological and medical sciences; Blood pressure; Cancer; Cause of Death; Cigarette industry; Cigarettes; Cooperative Behavior; Documentation; Employees; Fraud - prevention & control; Fraud - statistics & numerical data; Health education; Health Education - standards; Health hazards; Humans; Hypertension; Infections; Insurance companies; Interinstitutional Relations; Litigation; Managed Care Programs - organization & administration; Medical sciences; Minnesota; Miscellaneous; Mortality; New Jersey; Occupational Health Services - organization & administration; Partnership agreements; Periodicals as Topic - standards; Public health; Public health. Hygiene; Public health. Hygiene-occupational medicine; Publishing - standards; Scientific Misconduct; Smoking; Smoking - adverse effects; Smoking - epidemiology; Smoking Prevention; Tobacco Industry - organization & administration; Tobacco smoke; United States - epidemiology
• ISSN: 0090-0036; 1541-0048
• DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.94.8.1307

A review of internal tobacco company documents showed that the tobacco company Philip Morris and the insurance company CIGNA collaborated to censor accurate information on the harm of smoking and on environmental tobacco smoke exposure from CIGNA health newsletters sent to employees of Philip Morris and its affiliates. From 1996 to 1998, 5 of the 8 CIGNA newsletters discussed in the internal tobacco documents were censored.We recommend that accrediting bodies mandate that health plans not censor employee-directed health information at the request of employers.