Collections
Thursday, July 26, 2012DRUG

Documents Related to the Recently Settled $3B GSK Suit

In July, 2012, GlaxoSmithKline pled guilty to off-label marketing of Paxil and Wellbutrin as well as failing to report on studies of the safety of the diabetes drug, Avandia.  They were fined a record $3 billion.
(http://www.npr.org/2012/07/02/156118688/drug-maker-glaxosmithkline-fined-record-3-billion)

Interested in learning more about this case?


The Project on Government Oversight (POGO) Collection on DIDA contains hundreds of internal documents related to the investigation of ghostwriting which involved GSK - http://dida.library.ucsf.edu/investigations.jsp

Within that collection, check out the documents related to Study "329" (the GSK study on Paxil and Adolescent Depression) which figures prominently in the Justice Department's complaint against GSK.
Friday, June 22, 2012TOBACCO

Tobacco Industry Document Resources

You know about the Legacy Tobacco Documents Library, our digital archive of 13+ million tobacco industry documents, but did you know about the other amazing document resources out there, especially for advertising/marketing studies?

Friday, June 08, 2012TOBACCO

The CA Tobacco Control Collection

The Legacy Tobacco Documents Library has added a new collection – the California Tobacco Control collection.

The California Tobacco Control collection is a small but growing collection of materials highlighting tobacco control public policy efforts in California including tobacco tax measures, smoke-free ordinances, education and outreach. 
In September 2011, the LTDL began a website archiving project, funded by a TRDRP grant, using the Web Archiving Service (WAS) developed by the California Digital Library. This project, the California Tobacco Control Web Archive, consists of a selection of web resources that have been curated and "captured" on specific dates. The records from the web archive have been integrated into LTDL and are a part of this California Tobacco Control collection.
The focus of this new web archive is to preserve websites and resources created by local government, advocacy groups, tobacco control organizations, bloggers, news agencies and tobacco-industry front groups surrounding contemporary California tobacco control public policy efforts.  Records from the web archive will be added to LTDL on a regular basis but a user may always go directly to the California Tobacco Control Web Archive  on the CDL site to browse the preserved web resources.
Browse the CA Tobacco Control collection 
Wednesday, June 06, 2012TOBACCO

New Papers Added to the Bibliography

New papers and articles have been added to the Tobacco Documents Bibliography.  Learn more about  FCTC implementation in Uruguay, tobacco industry efforts to influence the European Union’s Tobacco Products Directive and the tobacco "money trail" through Prop 29:
http://www.library.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docsbiblio
Thursday, May 24, 2012TOBACCO

Global Tobacco Control on FaceBook

There's a good resource for US and international news from, and for, the tobacco control community on FaceBook.  Go to http://www.facebook.com/groups/GlobalTobacco/ to join.  While it won't quite replace the fantastic GlobaLink edited by Stan Shatenstein, it is a good way to keep up with news. 
Wednesday, May 23, 2012TOBACCO

Personal Confidential Redactions

What is a “personal confidential redaction” and is there a way to request that information?

The Legacy Tobacco Documents Library contains a number of documents with "redactions," a black or white box or black highlighting that makes the original text unreadable.  Sometimes these are redactions of personally identifiable information that has been withheld from public view based on a purported privacy concern.  There are two ways you may be able to identify such a redaction.  First, in or near the portion of the document that is redacted, you may find the notation “personal confidential redaction” or something similar.  However, particularly for older documents, the information may simply be redacted.  In that case the only way to know it is a personal confidential redaction is to look in document codes under the redaction field, which may indicate that there has been such a redaction.

In December 2011, several U.S. tobacco companies entered into Consent Orders in the United States vs. Philip Morris, et al. lawsuit mandating certain document disclosure obligations (specific covered websites are listed below).  With regard to personal information in particular, the Orders allow these companies to redact the following:

  • Information about any individual: social security numbers, home addresses, personal phone numbers, financial account information, driver’s license numbers, date of birth, mother’s maiden name and names of minors. 
  • Information about the tobacco companies’ own employees or employees’ families, or consumers in  their capacity as consumers: the same information as above, and in addition, personal email addresses and names where the document also links the person to certain kinds of information (e.g. sexual orientation, medical information, certain kinds of employment-related information).
The Orders further provide that the United States government and Public Health Intervenors (six public health groups -- the Tobacco-Free Kids Action Fund, American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, American Lung Association, Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights and National African American Tobacco Prevention Network) may request that certain personal confidential redactions be lifted in whole or in part where they are broader than the limited list of allowable redactions provided in the Orders.  If you come across a personal confidential redaction that you would like to see in unredacted form, you can contact us to request that we inquire whether the redaction can be lifted. 

The following document collections available at this website are covered by these Orders:
  • American Tobacco
  • Brown & Williamson
  • Lorillard
  • Philip Morris
  • R. J. Reynolds
Friday, May 11, 2012TOBACCO

Doc of the Week

Public Relations Strategy for the Tobacco Advisory Council - 1978

Read the entire doc at: http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/msu40a99/pdf