>I’m not sure what you mean by “politics” here, so I’d rather be explicit and say what it looks like to me.

I mean that they explicitly said they retracted the study (in the journal, the authors haven't retracted anything) because they refuse to take any research from anybody who has ever accepted money from tobacco companies regardless of the rigor of the data or research. Non-academic reasons.

I understand their stance because, as you said, the tobacco companies have a long sordid history of research and it's a journal of lung health with a strong "anti-smoking" bent, but calling the study "retracted" implies that it was somehow false or disproven when it has not been.