BMJ  2003;327:505 (30 August), doi:10.1136/bmj.327.7413.505-a

Letter

Passive smoking

Comment from the editor

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Editor—I can't respond to all the points raised in this debate, and I thought I would simply share some reflections.

Firstly, we've considered again whether we should we have a blanket policy of refusing to publish research funded by the tobacco industry. We've twice considered this question in the BMJ and twice decided against. The BMJ is passionately antitobacco, but we are also passionately prodebate and proscience. A ban would be antiscience.

Secondly, we are not in the "truth" business. Scientific truths are all provisional. Most of science falls away as new paradigms emerge. This doesn't mean that we are in the "lies" business, but we are in the "debate" business. We judged this paper¹ to be a useful contribution to an important debate. We may be wrong, as we are with many papers. That's science.

Thirdly, with research papers we first ask if we are interested in the question. . . . [Full text of this article]

BMJ

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