Anne Landman's Collection
Coronary / Cancer Prevention Project
Abstract
In this 1998 letter, Meyer Friedman M.D. (of the eponymous Meyer Friedman Institute of the University of California San Francisco-Mt. Zion Medical Center) thanks Philip Morris for a check to fund the medical Institute's Coronary/Cancer Prevention project. A 1996 internal PM memo actually shows PM planning to endow a chair in preventive medicine at the Meyer Friedman Institute http://tobaccodocuments.org/pm/2063612693.html
That a tobacco company would finance a cancer prevention project or endow a chair in preventive medicine doubtless strikes some people as bizarre. It also seems counterintuitive that a medical school would accept such funding from a tobacco company. But tobacco companies have fostered financial relationships with prominent medical and academic institutions for decades. The companies have used these relationships to gain prestige by association, and boost their corporate credibility. This letter is emblematic of the debate over the ethics (or lack thereof) of academic medical institutions accepting research funding from tobacco companies.
Recognizing the contradictory nature of accepting tobacco industry funding, some medical schools have divested themselves of tobacco holdings and adopted policies against accepting tobacco industry funding. A recent paper in the journal Academic Medicine by document researchers (and Doc-Alert subscribers) Nathaniel Wander, Ph.D. and Ruth Malone, R.N., Ph.D., of UCSF explores the status of medical school divestment, which schools have divested their tobacco holdings, which have refused to do so and which have done so quietly (and why they have kept it quiet). Their article can be found at http://www.academicmedicine.org/cgi/content/abstract/79/11/1017
Fields
- Quotes
[From]:
Meyer Friedman Institute UCSF-Mount Zion Medical Center 1600 Divisidero Street San Francisco, California 94143-0326 Coronary/Cancer Prevention Project
January 21, 1998
[TO] Richard Carchman, Ph.D. Group Director Scientific Affairs Philip Morris U.S.A. Research Center Post Office Box 26583 Richmond, Virginai 23261-6583
Dear Richard,
We just received the check to fund the research project through 1998 and, of course, are deeply grateful for it.
As you probably saw in our last report of occurrences, there is a considerable difference in the incidence of infarction in the two groups favoring those who have received Type A counseling. There is no such difference yet in the incidence of cancer between the two groups.
I am so glad that Eve is doing well at the university. I am sure that Susan is doing very well also. I miss you guys. Have a healthy, happy new year.
Your friend,
Meyer Friedman, M.D.
- Company
- Philip Morris
- Author
- Friedman, Meyer (industry consultant)1994 Used by industry to discuss counfounders, stress associated with inabilty to smoke and ETS contribution to cardiovascular disease.Proposed consultant to comment on Federal OSHA proposal on workplace smoking.
- Recipient
- Carchman, Richard Allan, Ph.D. (PM Scientific Affairs, Research & Development VP)Philip Morris Director and worked in Scientific Affairs. Reported to Cathy ellis.
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