U. of California Faculty to Consider Ban on Research Funds From Tobacco Industry
Chronicle of Higher Education 5/4/07
Such a ban, which would cut tobacco companies out of one of the largest academic-research operations in the country, would be the first in which the system has uniformly banned a specified source of research support.
Faculty members and administrators in the system are hesitant to back an outright ban on tobacco money, saying that a moratorium on any industry, no matter how unpopular, would undercut academic freedom. In a preliminary vote, the executive council of the senate voted 15 to 1 against the ban.
A member of the university system's Board of Regents proposed the ban after a federal judge in Washington criticized tobacco companies in a ruling last August in a racketeering case brought by the federal government. Judge Gladys Kessler of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia found that the companies had misrepresented their product for almost 50 years.
Central to her finding was the work of the Philip Morris External Research Program, which paid for studies by a professor at the University of California at Los Angeles that reported no conclusive evidence that secondhand smoke had adverse effects on health.
Proponents of the ban, both inside and outside the California system, have mounted an extensive campaign to make their case. They say the UCLA research is just one example of the industry's essentially buying research to use in public-relations campaigns.
"I am not saying everyone who deals with them is corrupt," says Stanton A. Glantz, a cardiology professor at the University of California at San Francisco and a vocal antitobacco advocate, "but there are enough instances of that kind of behavior that I think it jeopardizes the entire institution's reputation."
Tobacco-industry grants to the University of California system are relatively small -- currently about $16-million, or 0.4 percent of the system's total research support -- among four campuses. But John B. Oakley, the Academic Senate's chairman, says opponents of the ban worry that a moratorium on one industry could lead to others. Soon, the argument goes, money from the military, the alcoholic-beverage industry, and energy companies could also be banned.
Dr. Glantz, however, says the "slippery slope" argument misses the point: "The Pentagon, when they fund a project, they are very highly interested in getting it right. When the tobacco companies are funding a project, they are interested in getting it wrong."
A spokesman for Philip Morris USA, one of the grant makers, denies the accusation and says the company gives money for "the highest quality of independent research."
Regents Are Divided
Richard C. Blum, one of the California regents, says that an industry that purposely pays for incorrect results is unique and can be separated from other controversial sponsors of research. "My objection is the association with the tobacco industry. I just don't want our name being used in the process. I don't want us doing research for them, because we're going to get used."
The Academic Senate is to meet next week to discuss the ban, but Mr. Blum says he would be "shocked" if the senate backs it. The final decision will come from the Board of Regents, which is scheduled to vote on the ban later this month, although Mr. Blum says it will probably put off deciding until July. The board is split over the issue, he says.
Opponents of the ban insist they are not in favor of the tobacco industry's tactics, nor are they defending its history. According to Mr. Oakley, who is a law professor at the University of California at Davis, opponents say it should be up to individual researchers whether to accept money from a given source.
Moratoriums on the use of tobacco money for research are not new. Among other institutions, the Harvard School of Public Health, the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and Sweden's Karolinska Institute, which awards the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, eschew money from the tobacco industry.
Barry R. Bloom, dean of the Harvard school, calls the slippery-slope argument "a last resort." Since his school banned tobacco money, in 2002, he says, there has been "not a peep" about cutting off funds from any other industry.
"If the only money a scientist gets for research is from a tobacco company," says Mr. Bloom, "then this is probably not a scientist worth supporting."