NY Times ad: WARNING: Tobacco Interests Using Budget Process to Block Cancer Control Research (1995)
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The New York Times, October 16, 1995
WARNING: Tobacco Interests Using Budget Process to Block Cancer Control Research
It is unprecedented for Congress to withhold funds from cancer control research approved and supported by the National Cancer Institute (NCI).
But that's exactly what House Appropriations Committee chair John Porter (R-ILL) is trying to do, under pressure from the tobacco industry.
The real target is Stanton A. Glantz, PhD, Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.
Dr. Glantz has an NCI grant to analyze the U.S. tobacco industry's on-going efforts to spread cancer by derailing public policies aimed at preventing tobacco deaths.
These include attacking all evidence of tobacco's lethality and addictiveness, despite the fact that tobacco industry researchers have had the same results for 30 years.
So important do his peers consider Dr. Glantz's work that it was ranked in the top 10% of all grants submitted to NCI. Indeed, the Journal of the American Medical Association devoted most of its July 19, 1995 issue to publication of Dr. Glantz's research. Yet Porter criticizes his work as not being "medical."
The stakes are high. Prevention of some 420,000 annual U.S. tobacco deaths has long been an NCI priority.
But the House Appropriations Committee action has just raised the stakes even higher --by letting tobacco companies pollute and limit scientific enquiry.
Should we let America's scientific agenda be set and censored by powerful special interests? How can sound public policy be based on incomplete--or purposely distorted--research?
As Dr. Glantz and his colleagues have proven, the tobacco industry has never hesitated to subvert medical science or manipulate the political process for the sake of easy profit. ,
The difference? Now the new House majority, intoxicated by its power over America's health research budget, is eager to aid and abet the industry.
We, the undersigned, strongly protest the House Appropriations Committee's dangerous action.
We urgently appeal to Congress and the President to keep American science free from political partisanship and special interests.
The undersigned strongly condemn the House Appropriations Committee's action as a threat to scientific enquiry.
Lester Breslow, MD, MPH Prof. & Dean Emeritus UCLA School of Public Health Helena G. Brown Assoc Dir, Community Research Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center. UCLA Particle A Butler, PhD, MPH Dean, School of Public Health Univ of Calif, Berkeley David M. Burns, MD Prof of Medicine Univ. of Calif.. San Diego Melvin D. Cheitlin, MD Prof of Medicine, Chief of Cardialog, SF General Hospital K. Michael Cummings, PhD, MPH. Sr Research Scientist, Dept of Cancer Control & Epidemlology Roswell Park Cancer Insbtute Virginia L Ernstar, PhD Prof. of Epidemiology Univ. of Calif. SF Larry K. Fuller Chairman. Board of Directors American Cancer Society Roy Goldfarb, PhD Prof. of Physiology & Medicine Rush-Presbyterian-St Luke's Medical Center Charlene Harrington, PhD Prof. & Chair, Dept of Social & Behavioral Sciences Univ of Caiif. SF Joel S. Karliner, MD Prof of Medicine Univ of Calif. SF C. Everett Koop, MD, ScD Former US Surgeon General (1981-1989) SIeve Lehman, PhD Chairman. UCSF/UCB Bioengineering Graduate Group Sheldon Margan, MD Prof Emeritus School of Public Health Univ. of Calif, Berkeley Joseph B. Martin, MD, PhD Prof of Neurology Univ of Calif., SF Barry M. Massie, MO Prof. of Medicine Univ of Calif, SF LaMar McGinnis, MD President American Cancer Society Michael Pertschuk Co-Dir. Advocacy Institute Former Chair, Federal Trade Commission Nicholas L Petrakis, MD Prof. of Preventive Medicine & Epidemiology. Univ. of Catif., SF Stanley A. Rubin, MD Prof of Medicine Univ. of Calif, Irvine Jonathan Samet, MD Prof. & Chair, Dept. of Epidemiology. School of Pubtic Health, Johns Hopkins Univ. Nelson B. Schiller. MD Prof of Medicine, Anesthesia & Radiology Univ of Calif., SF Gregory G. Schwartz. MD. PhD, Assoc Prof. of Medicine Univ of Calif. SF John R. Seffrin, PhD Exec V.P & Chief Staff Officer American Cancer Society John Slade, MD Assoc, Prof., Dept. of Medicine Univ. of Medicine & Dentistry of NJ. Rohen Wood Johnson Medical School Donald E. Smith, MD President, American Society of Addiction Medicine Francis C, Szoka Jr.,PhD Prof of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Chemistry Univ of Calif, SF Kenneth E. Warner, PhD Richard O. Remington Collegiate Professor of Public Health. Univ of Michigan Elizabeth M. Whelan, ScD President. Amennen Council on Science and Health
(This Is a partial listing. Titles and affiliations for identification only)
For more information, please write: Public Media Center, 466 Green Street, Suite 300-T, San Francisco, CA 94133
10/7/95. To those who responded to the previous message about Dr. Glantz--Thank you.The deadline is now over. However, the threat remains:
Alert: Stanton Glantz Research Congress' attempt to interfere with the NCI's grant approval process by excising a grant given to Dr. Stanton Glantz for tobacco research must be protested.
Contact your Senators and Representative and ask them to protect academic freedom and stop interfering with research on tobacco. Also contact:
Dr. Richard D. Klausner
Director, National Cancer Institute
Bldg. 31, Room 11A48
9000 Rockville Pike
Bethesda, MD 20892.
On August 3, the U.S. House of Representatives approved an Appropriations Committee report which directed the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to stop funding Professor Glantz's research grant, "The Effect of Tobacco Advocacy at the State Level." Rep. John Porter (R-IL) introduced the committee's instructions to eliminate the project in the committee report, saying Glantz's research is "focusing on the political process and those who lobby legislators on tobacco policy," and that the work "should not have been funded by NCI."
The unprecedented intrusion of Congress into NCI's peer-reviewed determination of which studies to fund, and the miniscule amount of money involved, indicate a determined effort to stop publicly funded research into tobacco industry activities.
The threat would immediately affect the last year of a three-year grant.
During the first 2 years of this grant, Glantz has:
- Demonstrated that tobacco industry campaign contributions affect legislative behavior at the state level;
- Studied the development and passage of California's Proposition 99
- Analyzed the tobacco industry's attempts to discredit legitimate scientific research on passive smoking and to undermine effective public health steps to control tobacco
- Analyzed in depth the "secret" Brown and Williamson documents. The analysis was published in the July 19, 1995 issue of the Journal Of The American Medical Association.
The Senate Appropriations Bill contains similar language. Call the Congressional switchboard at (202) 224-3121 to reach these members of the Senate Appropriations Committee:
- Arlen Specter (R-PA), Chair
- Thad Cochran (R-MS)
- Connie Mack (R-FL)
- Christopher Bond (R-MO)
- Mark O. Hatfield (R-OR)
- Slade Gorton (R-WA)
- Judd Gregg (R-NH)
- James Jeffords (R-VT)
- Tom Harkin (D-IA)
- Ernest Hollings (D-SC)
- Dale Bumpers (D-AR)
- Herb Kohl (D-WI)
- Robert Byrd (D-WV)
- Daniel Inouye (D-HI)
- Harry Reid (D-NV)
Some quotes on the issue:
"This is exactly the type of unnecessary and wasteful funding which most American taxpayers have become sick and tired of hearing about in Washington."
Senator Wendell Ford (D-KY), in a letter to Secretary of Health and Human Services, Donna Shalala.
"If you want to beat malaria, you have to understand the malaria mosquitoes that spread malaria. If you want to prevent lung cancer, you have to study the tobacco industry to see how it spreads smoking."
Dr. Stanton Glantz, explaining his study of the tobacco industry, Washington Post, August 8, 1995.
"The fact that his relatively small budget has been singled out for attack is really, I think, a testament to the effectiveness of the research he does."
Lawrence Wallack, professor of public health, University of California, Berkeley, in an interview on CNN, August 30, 1995.
"For the U.S. Congress to politicize the decision as to what specific research is or is not funded, thereby circumventing the NIH's peer review system which has been used so successfully for so many years is reprehensible. In my view, the public health of millions of Americans is more important than the political health of a few tobacco-state congressmen."
George D. Lundberg, editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association, Washington Post, August 8, 1995.
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