Consider those willing physicians hired by Big Tobacco decades ago to undertake research “proving” that cigarettes were not dangerous to our health. Back in 1969, for example, Post-Keyes-Gardner (the ad agency for tobacco giant Brown & Williamson) relied on the paid testimony of hired guns with the letters M.D. after their names for a new marketing campaign “to set aside in the minds of millions the false accusations that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer or other diseases.” (Handbook of Public Relations, Heath & Vasquez, 2004).

Such doctors represented a shocking departure in the public’s perception of the noble physician’s role, a shift away from the hospital or doctor’s office setting to the slightly unsavory world of physicians on the take from industry.

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