This is tricky. It feels like it's an obvious conflict of interest. But if the researchers are free to do real science, no strings attached, this seems like a good thing.

Even with no strings attached, it's hard to trust PMI. Imagine the researchers discovered, with data to prove it, that PMI's new smokeless tech truly did make PMI's products safe. I doubt anyone would trust it.

But if the research discovered that smokeless tech was worse, with data to prove it, I suspect it'd be a lot easier to trust.