Lung Cancer Screening Study Flap: A Twisted Trail of Hidden Motives?

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The Lung Cancer Alliance, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit group that advocates lung cancer screening, has written the National Cancer Institute protesting that two key researchers involved in the National Lung Screening Trial, a massive, federally-funded lung cancer screening study, have a conflict of interest because they both served as paid, expert defense witnesses for the tobacco industry. Radiologist Denise Aberle, M.D., in her 2003 trial testimony on behalf of American Tobacco Company in Louisiana, agreed that doctors who recommend low-dose CT scans to detect lung cancer were being "reckless." Dartmouth college radiologist William Black, M.D. provided an expert report for Philip Morris in a case in New York, in which he stated CT scanning may "do more harm than good." That these two doctors have testified for tobacco companies does raise red flags, but so does the fact that the Lung Cancer Alliance is funded in part by corporate grants, including $100,000 from the General Electric Company, which makes CT scanners and would stand to profit significantly from their expanded use.