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• LANDMAN: Without Academic Partnerships, the Tobacco Industry Loses Power  

A February 9 Los Angeles Times article about University of California, Los Angeles professor Edythe London taking a $6 million grant from Philip Morris to study the brains of child smokers and monkeys addicted to nicotine once again raises questions about the appropriateness of university researchers accepting tobacco industry funding. Philip Morris denied that they have a stake in this particular project, but the denial had little credibility since the company no doubt will benefit from understanding more about youth smoking and nicotine addiction. After all, the future of their business depends on these two topics. Still, we wonder why any person curious enough to be engaged in scientific research isn't also curious enough to find out what's in it for Philip Morris before they accept the funds? These days, the answer is as close as your computer.

Edythe London and UCLA may not have wanted to know (and after all, $6 million in grant money could stop a lot of people from wanting to know a lot of things), but I wanted to find out what worries Philip Morris so much that they pour such sums of money and tremendous effort into building relationships with prominent academics and universities, so I searched the Legacy Tobacco Documents Library using terms like "academic freedom," "ethics in research," and "data integrity," all terms found in tobacco industry documents that discuss the importance of academic funding. . . .

These, and many other documents like them, show clearly that when academics refuse tobacco industry money, it strikes deeply at the core of the tobacco business in many highly significant ways: It impedes the ability of tobacco companies to produce any science at all in their favor, and get it accepted by the mainstream scientific community. It makes it difficult for them to hire and keep employees. It turns tobacco companies, and their scientists, into pariahs in scientific circles. Such rejection results in a loss of credibility that in turn reduces the industry's power to influence legislators and regulators; it makes it harder for tobacco companies to get offered a seat at the table in governmental and nongovernmental negotiations about regulating their products; it also reduces their ability recruit influential third parties--like scientists or academic consultants--to speak for the industry in these times when the industry can't credibly speak for itself. It even impacts tobacco companies' ability to preserve the social acceptability of smoking and market their cigarettes.

That's a lot of very bad negatives. No wonder Philip Morris spends millions wooing academic institutions and scientists, and no wonder the sums PM gives are high enough to blind these scientists and institutions as to their effects. The consequences of PM losing their connections to acadamia are dire. These few internal documents alone, found in the course of one day, show that the damage done to the tobacco industry when academics and scientists reject their money is incalculable. Rejecting tobacco industry funding appears to be one of the most powerful public health actions that an individual or institution involved in research can possibly take.

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