Tobacco funding ban
stirs debate among faculty
BY ANNE BURKE
UCLA Today Staff
The systemwide Assembly of the Academic Senate is set to consider
a controversial resolution that would effectively bar individual
UC academic units from rejecting tobacco funding for research.
The resolution, which has garnered support from the UCLA Academic
Senate, comes in response to faculty decisions at the UCLA School
of Nursing and other UC academic units to ban the use of tobacco
industry funding for research. The Assembly will consider the resolution
at its May 11 meeting at UC Berkeley.
A divided faculty at the UCLA nursing school voted in May 2004
not to accept tobacco industry contracts, grants or gifts. Nursing
Professor Linda Sarna spearheaded the move because of the industry’s
history of manipulating research results and the harmful effects
of smoking.
The resolution set to come before the Assembly argues that academic
freedom gives individual faculty the right to decide whether to
accept research funding. But should a legitimate reason arise to
reject funding, the resolution continues, the decision rests with
the Board of Regents and must apply systemwide, said George Blumenthal,
chair of the systemwide Academic Senate.
“If it’s immoral for UCLA to accept tobacco money, then
how can it not be immoral for San Diego to accept tobacco money?”
Blumenthal said.
The resolution comes to the Assembly from its administrative arm,
the UC Academic Council, which passed the measure unanimously March
30. If the Assembly also passes the resolution, it would go to UC
President Robert C. Dynes, who has already indicated his support
on the grounds of academic freedom.
Currently, the tobacco industry supports 19 active studies in the
UC system with grant awards totaling about $8.7 million, according
to David Mears, director of research administration at the UC Office
of the President. The UC’s total research expenditures are
about $3.5 billion.
Two of the 19 studies are at UCLA. Philip Morris USA awarded $469,873
for a study on smoking and mortality, based on national surveys,
and $339,897 for a study of tobacco smoke-induced pulmonary inflammation
and epithelial damage in rats. The School of Nursing does not receive
funding from the tobacco industry, Sarna said.
At UCLA, the Academic Senate hosted a March 1 town hall meeting
on the issue of restrictions on research funding and put the matter
to a vote of various Senate committees. The outcome, Senate chair
Kathleen Komar informed Blumenthal in a March 9 letter, was “a
strong majority opinion that we would rather err on the side of
academic freedom of the individual on this issue.”
“I would hope UCLA researchers don’t take money from
the tobacco industry,” Komar added in an interview. “But
do I think that any group of faculty should be able to get together
and say to an individual faculty member, ‘You can’t
take this funding because I disapprove of it’? Then, no.”
Komar added that many faculty feared a “slippery slope regarding
questionable funding sources.” If tobacco funding is banned,
she said, then would research grants from the pharmaceutical, alcohol
and firearms industries be prohibited later?
The tobacco question aside, Sarna said she opposes the resolution
that the Assembly will vote on next month because it will give regents
the authority to decide an issue that should be left up to systemwide
faculty.
In 2001, the regents voted against investing in tobacco stocks.
But the board has not yet addressed the question of research funds.
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