LTDL to Receive $6.25M for Document Indexing and Access

The U.S. Department of Justice filed a proposed consent order on December 14, 2011 with a federal district court that finalized requirements for three major tobacco companies to make internal documents public in accordance with an earlier ruling that the companies violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. The documents have been and will continue to be archived in UCSF’s Legacy Tobacco Documents Library (LTDL).

The order is part of the remedy phase of the largest civil racketeering (RICO) case in the history of the United States and specifies that the companies provide $6.25 million to the court to improve public access and indexing of the documents.  These funds will go to the UCSF Legacy Tobacco Documents Library for this purpose.

“These funds will allow us to substantially improve the way investigators, the media and the public are able to research how tobacco companies produce, price and market their products as well as protect their political interests globally,” said Kim Klausner, UCSF Industry Documents Digital Library Manager.

“Research based on the documents has provided a unique insight into how the tobacco industry manipulates scientific and political processes and engineers its products and marketing to maximize its sales,” said Stanton A. Glantz, PhD, UCSF professor of medicine and director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at UCSF. “By revealing the industry’s behind-the-scenes strategies and involvement, this understanding has transformed public health from city councils to the United Nations.”

Read more at: http://www.ucsf.edu/news/2011/12/11138/ucsf-receive-tobacco-papers-funding-improve-public-access-documents