Picture this: Among the cirque du swag of the BIO 2006 exhibit hall in Chicago, a cheerful young scientist pads up to the booth of a certain magazine of the life sciences. On scanning her nametag, one of my colleagues notices an interesting affiliation: Philip Morris. Intrigued, my colleague asks the senior research scientist about her work, which she says involves "harm reduction."
With 16,000 people in attendance, BIO is as far as you can get from the deserted parking garage that was the scene of a meeting between an investigative reporter and tobacco company research biologist Jeffrey Wigand, the whistleblower played by Russell Crowe in The Insider. It was enough to make us think that this perfectly pleasant woman was a sign that the company had turned a new leaf - if you'll pardon the pun - towards transparency. The prospect of writing a profile of this scientist was ...
