Nature Reviews Cancer 3, 733–744 (2003)

There is an article (October 2002) associated with this correction. Please click here to view it.

On page 740 of this article, it was inadvertently implied that the authors of references 103 and 104 were somehow linked to the tobacco industry. However, the authors' research is not funded by, or carried out in the interests of, the tobacco industry. Rather, Stephen Hecht meant that the industry is using the results detailed in references 103 and 104 to question the tobacco specificity of NNK and NNN.

The fourth complete sentence on page 740 should be replaced with:

Myosmine, a tobacco constituent, is also found in small quantities (a few parts per billion) in several foods, such as potatoes, raw popcorn and cream103,104. The tobacco industry is now attempting to build a case to question the tobacco specificity of NNK and NNN adducts, suggesting that they might result from the nitrosation of myosmine.