Jump to full article: Daily Californian (UC Berkeley), 2007-01-19
Author: Julia Szinai Daily Cal Staff Writer
Intro: Citing concerns about infringement on academic freedom, the UC Board of Regents elected to postpone a vote on prohibiting faculty members from accepting research funds from tobacco companies.
While being urged by some professors to abolish the funding, the regents chose to delay a vote until the May meeting due to fears of setting a precedent that some said could prevent faculty from having control over their research.
“I think academic freedom and how much you believe in your faculty is more important than anything,” said Regent Sherry Lansing. “I really believe we should not be involved in anything that violates academic freedom and I think this does. I believe the faculty can do research without being corrupted.” . . .
Proponents of the ban, like UCSF Professor of Medicine Stanton Glantz, pointed to an eight-year federal lawsuit that ruled in August 2006 that tobacco companies like Philip Morris USA, Inc. were guilty of fraudulent practices, including funding research at UC.
Glantz pointed to UCLA professor James Enstrom as what he said was an example of how tobacco funds could tarnish the integrity of the university.
Enstrom was revealed to have long misled colleagues by not disclosing a tobacco company as his funding source and ignoring problems with his data, according to John Seffrin, CEO of the American Cancer Society.
“The university’s mission is about truth, light and enlightenment,” Glantz said. “The tobacco companies fund universities to confuse things and slow down the transmission of knowledge. There is no question that they have been very successful. The reason the regents should not be engaged is because (the companies) use universities against the university’s fundamental mission.”
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Quotes from this article:
The university’s mission is about truth, light and enlightenment. The tobacco companies fund universities to confuse things and slow down the transmission of knowledge. There is no question that they have been very successful. The reason the regents should not be engaged is because (the companies) use universities against the university’s fundamental mission.
UCSF Professor of Medicine Stanton Glantz, on the UC tobacco funding brou-ha-ha.
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