Sullivan's original draft concluded that not only does a mother smoking during pregnancy increase the risk of cot death, but so also does exposing a newborn baby to passive smoking. He said: "The evidence overall suggests that both pre-natal and post-natal maternal smoking exert independent effects."
Philip Morris executives were unhappy at this statement and urged Sullivan to make changes that incorporated their detailed comments.
Sullivan's final draft included several amendments suggested by company scientists which played down the role of smoking and particularly the role of second-hand smoke in causing cot death.
At the suggestion of Philip Morris, Sullivan added two paragraphs about a 1999 Tasmanian study of cot death that found no conclusive link between second-hand smoke and cot death. A company scientist told Sullivan: "I think that this paper is extremely important and I also think that, if at all possible, it ought to be included in your review."
After Philip Morris's interventions, Sullivan agreed to change his original conclusion that passive smoking is an independent risk factor for cot death. He argued that, although smoking during pregnancy increased the risk of it happening, the threat of passive smoking was "less well-established."
His final article, which was published in the Journal of Paediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology in 2001, stated the relationship was "difficult to quantify."
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