The cigarette wars were science’s first confrontation with organized denialism, and no one was prepared. The tobacco companies magnified any shred of scientific controversy they could. They set up their own Tobacco Industry Research Committee, a front organization that gave money to scientists to study issues related to cancer or tobacco—but somehow never got around to the central question. When they could find legitimate skeptics of the smoking-cancer connection—such as R. A. Fisher and Jacob Yerushalmy—the tobacco companies paid them consulting fees.
