Indoor Air Pollution Advisory Group

The Indoor Air Pollution Advisory Group (IAPAG) was large group of academics who consulted for the tobacco industry on environmental tobacco smoke and provided administrative and legislative testimony on ETS. The group was put together in 1983 by tobacco industry lawfirm, Covington & Burling at Georgetown University, Washington D.C. for the Tobacco Institute. Professor Sorell Schwartz of the Department of Pharmacology and Nancy Balter at the School of Medicine were the principles. . The IAPAG was supposedly a group within the Center for Environmental Health and Human Toxicology (CEHHT).

The Core IAPAG Group
The group expanded over time, beginning with about a half-dozen participants circa 1987.


 * Sorell L. Schwartz - a Professor in the Department of Pharmacology at Georgetown University, Washington D.C. was the key point of contact between the IAPAG group, the Tobacco Institute, and its legal firm Covington & Burling.
 * Nancy J. Balter - based at the School of Medicine at the Georgetown University.  She also ran the CEHHT database.
 * Philip Witorsch- A Washington-based pulmonologist who provided scientific opinion and witness services for the tobacco industry. In 1986 he was at the School of Medicine, George Washington University, later he set up as a freelance "scientific witness for hire" servicing many different industries.
 * Raphael J. Witorsch - a university professor of Physiology at the Medical College of Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth University.
 * Jim Kilpatrick - (unknown credentials) Produced reports for Covington & Burling.
 * Mark J. Reasor - a toxicologist at the Department of Pharmacology/Toxicology, West Virginia University.
 * Salvatore DiNardi - an environmental scientist at the School of Health Sciences, University of Massachusetts, Amhurst who worked for the TI on the calibration of air-sampling machines.
 * Jack Peterson - of Peterson Associates, Brookfield, Wisconsin, and the University of Wisconsin.
 * Vincent Castranova - a physiologist at  West Virginia University.
 * Samuel Spagnolo of the Department of Pulmonary Medicine at George Washington University.
 * Kenneth Mossman - A radiation scientist at Georgetown, who argued that tobacco smoke might reduce the ability of radon to produce lung cancer.
 * David Weeks - who practiced general medicine in Boise, Idaho, and appeared regularly as a scientific witness for the Tobacco Institute.

Key IAPAG Associates

 * Gray Robertson, Simon Turner and Peter Binnie of Healthy Buildings International (HBI) also known as ACVA Atlantic. They conducted studies in association with the IAPAG group (also independently) and ran a business testing indoor air for building owners.
 * Alan W. Katzenstein of Katzenstein Associates, who "would support the legislative testimony of the IAPAGers, by doing some of the preliminary spadework with the press and politicians."

Various IAPAG projects
CEHHT: IAPAG was supposedly a group within the Center for Environmental Health and Human Toxicology (CEHHT) which was run by Sorell Schwartz and Nancy Balter.

Hirayama Study: The publication of a research paper by Dr. Hirayama in Japan revealed that the wives of smokers had a higher rate of lung cancer than the wives of nonsmokers. A quarter of a million subjects were involved in this study, so the results were fairly robust. The Tobacco Institute decided to try to "gain access to Hirayama's raw data for re-evaluation," and have it data-mined by a "blue-ribbon" scientific panel of their own choosing. The IAPAG group were given the task of reviewing "all Hirayama publications for consistency."

In June, 1986 Schwartz organized an accredited continuing medical education program at Georgetown -- "Health Effects of Environmental Tobacco Smoke on the Non-Smoker." It was to be jointly sponsored by the Georgetown University Medical Center and the American College of Toxicology, and funded in large part by the tobacco industry. A few speakers withdrew after being contacted by a National Institutes of Health official, claiming they did not have knowledge of the tobacco industry support. The American Lung Association protested to the University about sponsorship of a tobacco industry-funded seminar and urged cancellation. The University refused, based on academic freedom grounds. Nonetheless, Schwartz canceled the program. The American Lung Association protested to the University, and a few speakers withdrew. The tobacco industry claimed that the anti-smoking forces were attempting to censor scientific research and opinion. John Rupp, of the Tobacco Institute's legal firm Covington & Burling, issued a long statement trying to regain the high-ground of propriety. The ALA's actions were "a direct threat to scientific integrity" and an "an attempt to stifle free speech and academic freedom" the Tobacco Institute claimed.

After three years, Dr. Schwartz dissolved IAPAG in response the Tobacco Institute's pressure for the group to be more advocative. The Tobacco Institute then established a separate "Scientific Witness Team" comprised of non-academic private consultants.

Related Organizations
IAPAG was, to a large degree, the model for a number of "cut-out" organizations which acted as a collective resource for hired consultants and Whitecoats in other countries.
 * ARIA (Association for Research on Indoor Air) was the UK group's organization.
 * EGIL (Full-name unknown) serviced the Scandinavian Whitecoats.
 * ARTIST Asian Regional Tobacco Industry Science Team serviced Asia.

Additional Reading

 * A search for "IAPAG" in the University of San Francisco's Legacy Library turns up 1099 documents. See . There would be many more under "Georgetown University", "ETS Consultants" and thousands under the names of individual members.