The
ethics of the cash register: taking tobacco research dollars
Simon Chapman
Editor, Tobacco Control
Simonc{at}health.usyd.edu.au
Stan Shatenstein
Editor, Tobacco News Online
Simonc{at}health.usyd.edu.au
- A dictator plunders billions from his nation's treasury. Sensing he'll soon be forced into exile, he offers some ill-gotten millions to one of his land's smaller universities, insisting that the money fund a chair in a new school of social welfare studies that will bear his name.
- For years, an oil baron has traded petroleum products for weapons, fuelling a lengthy, futile regional conflict. Sensitive to international criticism, he promises a few million pounds to a prestigious European university, with the express purpose of creating a chair in "peace studies".
- A pornographer makes millions from films employing, on miserable wages, illiterate men and women from slums and villages of Asian nations. Having built his fortune, but now the subject of international vilification in the Western media, he offers a fraction of his riches to his alma mater. The caveat? The money must establish a chair in erotic literature.
- An unrepentant Nazi officer has amassed fabulous wealth by selling the possessions of concentration camp victims. Grateful to the country that provided him refuge from judgment at Nuremberg, he expresses appreciation on his death bed by donating his life savings to the nation's leading school, insisting only that the money be used to teach "a critical history of the Holocaust".
- A leading tobacco company controls over 15% of the industry's global market [1], making it responsible, annually, for more than 600,000 deaths worldwide [2]. The company promises millions of pounds to create an International Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility, where students may learn of the "social and environmental responsibilities of multinational companies". [3]
For the sobering sum of £3.8 m, British American Tobacco (BAT) announced that it would fund an International Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility at Britain's Nottingham University. As one TV reporter succinctly asked: "Ever heard the joke about the cigarette salesman and social responsibility? Well, it turns out this is no cheap gag."[4]
Two things should immediately be clear here: first, a university not hungry for money is a fictional institution; and second, there are few universities that would not draw a line somewhere about the appropriateness of taking money from disreputable sources. Apparently, Britain’s Nottingham University is one of the unhappy few that would seem to have no such qualms.
BAT's gift comes at a time when the company is subject to investigation by the UK Department of Trade and Industry over allegations of involvement in international tobacco smuggling [5] and in the still-churning wake of revelations concerning what is, undeniably, the world’s largest, longest-running and most mendacious consumer fraud ever perpetrated. [6, 7, 8]
We wrote to the Vice Chancellor of Nottingham University, Sir Colin Campbell (colin.campbell{at}nottingham.ac.uk), asking him if he would also be willing to accept money for University purposes from the above interest groups. No reply was received.
Like the tobacco industry, our list of benefactors above are all either purveyors of perfectly "legal products" or people who for different reasons have mostly escaped prosecution for their reviled conduct. Like the barons of the tobacco industry, the world's disgraced dictators, arms dealers, war criminals, and pornographers display pathological disregard for the victims of their actions. But, unlike the tobacco industry, our cast has mostly spared the world’s universities a goring on the horns of such funding dilemmas. The tobacco industry however, has hung about university research funding corridors like a wheel of ripe cheese in a sun-baked phone booth, provoking strenuous protest, particularly in universities in the USA [9], Canada [10], the UK [11], Australia [12], Israel [13] and South Africa [14].
Academic institutions must adhere to certain core principles. One of the highest of these is a commitment to open scientific enquiry. The tobacco industry is institutionally allergic to this central tenet, preferring to bury incriminating data and to obfuscate whatever truths do emerge regarding the toxicity of its products. The story of how Philip Morris treated the work of its own scientists, particularly Victor DeNoble and Paul C. Mele, [15] is staggering proof of the industry's incompatibility for partnership with universities.
For decades, the tobacco industry’s seductive international program of research benefaction masqueraded behind the legitimising language of independence, dispassionate enquiry and respect for scholarship. But, as revealed in the avalanche of internal industry documents now available on the world wide web, the industry was peerless in its proclivity for cultivating venal or naive scientists into a massively-funded public relations campaign. The sole purpose of the exercise was to sow doubt among the public via scientific journals and the mass media [16,17].
Tobacco industry grant recipients often unwittingly reinforced the industry argument that it was genuinely seeking to more precisely define the relationship between smoking and illness. "If only we could do this, we might then be prepared to agree that our tobacco kills and is addictive", their rhetoric pleaded in the days before it publicly agreed that the "C" and "A" words (causes cancer and addiction) properly applied to their products. Such collusion was utterly naive and served to perpetuate the industry's intent - that the issue of smoking and disease needed to be seen as wide open, therefore allowing the industry to remain blameless and unfettered in promoting its products.
But what can we make of the Nottingham case? We can imagine titles of seminar programs: "Deceiving your customers: is it always wrong?"; "Early death as moral virtue: a communitarian view"; "Burying discomfiting research: don't publish and don't perish"; "When good science goes bad". Fact is, the truth would be stranger than fiction. Tobacco ethics is a grotesque oxymoron and has all the ethical weight of a cash register. John Toy, the Imperial Cancer Research Fund's medical director, put it simply and eloquently: "If you accept money from the tobacco industry you are partly in cahoots with them. For me, it's a simple division of black and white. I think it's a great shame that Nottingham University has agreed to accept this money." [18] A chair in ethics, funded by tobacco money, can only collapse under the weight of its own shame.
Taking tobacco dollars tends to induce timidity among scholars who might otherwise trumpet the implications of their research in policy forums: why bite the hand that feeds so well? Scientists in receipt of tobacco money seldom, if ever, promote their findings in any arena that might influence health policy or take any role in public criticism of the tobacco industry. Indeed there are several examples of funded scientists actively doing the bidding of the industry in policy areas that threaten the industry’s future. [16]
Of course, many tobacco research questions can only be fully elucidated by medical research. Tobacco money has enabled some to remain employed, with undeniable benefits to colleagues and dependents. But the worthiness of research and the desirability of employment ought not to be evaluated apart from the means by which they are achieved and the wider agenda behind the industry's benefaction. Tobacco grant money derives directly from the sale of tobacco. Researchers with industry grants benefit directly from the sale and promotion of tobacco products, suffering the attendant ethical considerations about ghoulishly profiting from industry-induced death and disease.
A common rejoinder to this argues that there is no such thing as clean money. Isn't anyone in a government's employ getting a salary that derives partly from tobacco excise receipts? But, here, one might as well argue that an automobile driver is in the same position because the state pays for roads: by this argument, no one can avoid "benefiting" from smoking. Those who might not want to profit from tobacco money in such indirect ways are still, in effect, compelled to do so. The governmental practice of placing all forms of tax and excise into consolidated revenue, rather than hypothecation in the manner of, say, petrol tax for road programs, prevents individuals exercising such choice. But, in the case of tobacco research grants, recipients actively choose to obtain the money and so should be prepared to defend their decisions.
Industry-funded scientists have often defended themselves via base expediency: "there is money on the table, and someone is going to pick it up, so it might as well be us". Another defense argues that researchers have a moral duty to apply their knowledge and skills and that, in such cases, a balance must be struck between the implications of accepting the money and a neglect of important health and medical research. This would elicit some sympathy if it were true that other funding sources were simply unavailable. The ongoing history of non-industry sponsored research into tobacco and health shows this is not the case.
It is difficult to imagine a more calculated cynical gesture than the Nottingham incident. The tobacco industry's sponsorship of sports, fashion, and motor racing; and its funding of schools, youth groups and hospitals, all merit condemnation. But, even by industry standards, the marriage of tobacco and university ethics would make more than just the bride blush.
In defending the Nottingham deal, John Carlisle, of the Tobacco Manufacturers Association, was asked directly, "Do you accept that this [tobacco use] is a threat to health and that you're killing people?" His reply? "I accept that this is a controversial product... We would expect, obviously, some hard discussion would go on within that university as elsewhere." [19] Carlisle's non-answer neatly encapsulates the reasons for a categorical rejection of the industry's "blood money" [18].
In announcing the Nottingham donation, Michael Prideaux, Corporate Affairs Director for BAT, said, "We are very serious about demonstrating responsible behaviour in an industry seen as controversial." [20] But, if BAT cannot accept the inescapable problem about its products' lethal nature, then it is the antithesis of a responsible corporation. How, then, can it help Nottingham University answer subtle questions about ethical business practices?
BAT can provide the funds, but it cannot deliver the truth. Nottingham
can take the money, but it cannot run from the truth.
References
1. British American Tobacco - Topline Facts and Figures
http://www.bat.com/bat/WhoWA.nsf/97df5690f02b7d538625688400075994/ef55b71666974cc286256886005cd9c0!OpenDocument
2. Tobacco: global trends- ASH - International resources
http://www.ash.org.uk/html/international/html/globaltrends.html#ednref4
Peto R, Lopez A. The future worldwide health effects of current smoking patterns. To appear in: Global Health in the 21st Century. (In press)
3. Dominic Rushe, Tobacco firm backs corporate ethics professorship - Sunday Times, Sunday, December 3, 2000 http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2000/12/03/stibusnws01011.html
4. Alex Thomson, Channel 4 News [UK] - Special reports: Dealing with killer industries - Tuesday, December 5, 2000 http://www.channel4news.co.uk/home/20001205/Story04.htm
5. Byers announces investigation into British American Tobacco PLC -Department of Trade and Industry - UK, 30 October 2000. http://213.38.88.195/coi/coipress.nsf/2b45e1e3ffe090ac802567350059d840/e0a7db571a31d70c80256988005658bc?OpenDocument
6. International Consortium of Investigative Journalists .Major tobacco multinational implicated in cigarette smuggling, tax evasion, documents show, January 31, 2000. http://www.public-i.org/story_01_013100.htm
7. International Consortium of Investigative Journalists .Global reach of tobacco company's involvement in cigarette smuggling exposed in company papers, February 2, 2000. http://www.public-i.org/story_01_020200.htm
8. Tobacco Explained - ASH - 25 June 1998
http://www.ash.org.uk/html/conduct/html/tobexpld0.html
9. Ruter T. US journals veto tobacco funded research. BMJ 1996;312:11.
10. Barbara Sibbald, University refuses tobacco-sponsored
scholarship - Canadian Medical Association Journal; November 24, 2000
http://www.cma.ca/cmaj/cmaj_today/11_24a.htm
11. Kevin Maguire, Dons furious over tobacco cash.
The Guardian; December 6, 2000.
http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4101122,00.html
12. Walsh R, Sanson-Fisher R. What universities do about tobacco industry research funding. Tobacco Control 1994;3:308-315.
13. Judy Siegel, Tobacco companies funding research
at Israeli universities.Jerusalem Post; June 8, 2000
http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2000/06/07/News/News.7902.html
14. Ethics of using non-traditional sources of income to fund medical and health research. South African Medical Journal 1996;86:287.
15. County of Los Angles, Plaintiff, vs. R.J. Reynolds
Tobacco Company et al., Defendants - August 5, 1996 - STIC Library
http://stic.neu.edu/Ca/La/lacomplaint.htm
16. Notes on a Special Meeting of the UK Industry on Environmental Tobacco Smoke London, February 17th, 1988 - Philip Morris Tobacco Company Document Site http://www.pmdocs.com/getallimg.asp?DOCID=2063791193/1198
17. Report on the European Consultants Programme -
Covington & Burling
http://www.ash.org.uk/html/conduct/pdfs/2500048956.pdf
18. Kevin Maguire, University accepts tobacco 'blood
money' - The Guardian; December 5, 2000
http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,406941,00.html
19. Channel 4 News – Special reports - Dealing with
killer industries: Studio discussion (video report) - December 5, 2000
http://www.channel4news.co.uk/home/20001205/4dealint.ram
20. Nottingham University Business School to establish International Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility - Nottingham University. Monday December 4, 2000 http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/public-affairs/press-releases/2000/81.htm
Rapid Responses:
Read all Rapid Responses
- License to Kill
- Sri Varman
bmj.com, 19 Dec 2000 [Full text] - The Double Standards
- Misfar Hassan
bmj.com, 18 Dec 2000 [Full text] - Nottingham University's relationship with British American Tobacco (BAT)
- A J Hedley
bmj.com, 27 Dec 2000 [Full text] - The ethics of the cash register
- Tony Osborne
bmj.com, 4 Jan 2001 [Full text]
What's new
Latest blogs
Find BMJ on:
Services
Tools
Online poll
Resources
Rapid responses for this article
Print issues
