Tobacco research funding cut will not affect current UC research

By Cynthia Lee

A tobacco company's decision to end a controversial program that funded hundreds of research projects across the country won't affect the work of UC scientists who are already receiving funding.

Philip Morris' decision to end its External Research Program "will not affect any research that's already in the pipeline," said Jennifer Ward, UC spokeswoman. "Ongoing research is not going to be cut off." But no new money will be available.

Tobacco-funded research has been a longstanding controversy at UC, where regents considered a ban on all tobacco-industry funding based on what critics of tobacco said was a history of the industry's manipulation of research to advance its corporate interests. Based on similar concerns, the public health schools at Johns Hopkins, the University of Arizona, Harvard and Ohio State University, as well as the schools of medicine at Emory University and Harvard, adopted policies declining tobacco funding for research.

In the interest of academic freedom, however, the UC regents decided last September to place the responsibility for reviewing tobacco-funded research proposals on individual UC campuses and their chancellors. The regents also cautioned researchers to "exercise the upmost care to assure that their research adheres to the highest scientific and ethical standards, including vigilance in not allowing any funder to direct or control the outcome of their research or the dissemination of its results."

As of 2006-07, Philip Morris USA was funding approximately 23 active grants to support research and related activities at UCLA, UC Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, San Diego, Santa Barbara and Riverside. These grants amounted to approximately $16 million, a small part of UC's total research funding program. UCLA researchers' share of tobacco funding amounted to $7.6 million. By comparison, UC received more than $4 billion in total contracts and grants in 2006-07 alone.

Calls to Phillip Morris were not returned.