African American leadership groups: smoking with the enemy.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND:Among all racial and ethnic groups in the USA, African Americans bear the greatest burden from tobacco related disease. The tobacco industry has been highly influential in the African American community for decades, providing funding and other resources to community leaders and emphasising publicly its support for civil rights causes and groups, while ignoring the negative health effects of its products on those it claims to support. However, the industry's private business reasons for providing such support were unknown. OBJECTIVE:To understand how and for what purposes the tobacco industry sought to establish and maintain relationships with African American leaders. METHODS:Review and analysis of over 700 previously secret internal tobacco industry documents available on the i

SUBMITTER: Yerger VB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1747674 | biostudies-literature | 2002 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature