Credit: Center for Public Integrity

BELLEVUE, OHIO — At 2:15 in the morning, an insomniac corporate defense lawyer in San Francisco finished crafting a “revolutionary” scientific theory.

Now Evan Nelson of the law firm Tucker Ellis & West needed a scientist willing to publish it in a medical journal. If his theory were given scientific validity, Nelson could use it to win lawsuits.

Nelson defended companies that had exposed people to asbestos, a heat-resistant, fibrous mineral. Asbestos causes several deadly diseases, including mesothelioma, a rare cancer that often drowns the lungs in fluid.

Nelson had expressed frustration with the argument that asbestos is the only known cause of mesothelioma. After scouring the scientific literature and applying his own logic, Nelson came up with a new culprit: tobacco.

Nelson sent a typo-ridden email to Peter Valberg of Cambridge, Massachusetts. A former professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, Valberg was by then a principal at the environmental consulting firm Gradient Corporation, with offices in Harvard Square.

“We can […]