Tobacco Documents Online

~ ._`--=-j.:,..c.-t,t uL`• BRITISH LONDON, SATURDAY 21-28 DECEMBER 1985 MEDICAL JOURNAL Taking money from the devil General Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, said that he would take money from the devil if he could use it to help we poor. He was perhaps so saintly as to be beyond mnvption even by the devii, but would he have been right to ake money from arms manufacturers, bootleg*cra, brothel mdtmes, or those who sent children down the mines or up chimnrys? Were these people not creating the very condi- tions s&aiast which General Booth was :truggling? Was he qot iti as*,milar gredicament to modera health educators, who have been accused of wasting their time pulling people out of the river without paying enough attention to who is throwing them in? The difficult choice of General Booth has not gone away. roday health researchars must decide whether they are riliiug to take money from the tobacco industry, its creature he Health Promotion Research Trust, the drink trade, , artous food manufacturing concerns, or, indeed, from other. rganisations that make their money from manufacturing roducts that may seriously hsrm health. There are also romes about taking money from commercial concerns that n not primarily concerned with advancing knowledge or ith increasing the health of the people but rather with ,aking money from particular products, and this might clude the drug industry. Furthermore, it is not only those ~o want research funds who must think through the ' iplications of the source of their funding but also those who iflt to write reports on, say, "diet" or "alcohol," and those io want to organise postgraduate meetings for doctors. Nor : journalsists, a group who should set independence above else, immune from these pressures. The Medical Jour- lists Association earlier this year debated reducing its >cndence on drug company sponsorship, and narrowly xted the proposal. The case against taking money from the tobacco industry 5e easiest to make because only those with vested interests deny the harm done to health by tobacco. The latest mate suggests that more than 77000 people in E Wales die prematurely from smoking and that t}se~d to National Health Service alone is more than £I l im. The 4ure on the tobacco indusny is rising rapidly in Britain, te a Swedish court has ruled that lung cancer contracted +ugh passive smoking is a disease that qualifies for istrial compensadon. lbieanwhile, in the United States a cco company is being sued by the relatives of a man mtx MLDtC.u. 1ovRxAt. 1985. All rtproduconn rigbts resmmed, alkged to have been killed by smokiag. Yf th+ay win then otlur cases will follow and the cost to the industry will be incalculable. As the industry comes to be seen as an international persah so its need for respectability bacomes more desperate. Putting £11•Sm over three yra.rs into the Health Promotion Research Trust is one ebap way of trying to buy it-~ because £5m may be spent on advertising in one campaign for one brand of cigarettes. Even so the uustnes inrisred that the tnist should not sponsor research into illness associated with smoking, which the Lamast memorably oompared to the meSa sponsoting research into organised crime on the conditson that it was not investigxtcd. Sooa after the trust was set up three years ago Dr Jonathaa Miller, one of the original trustees, had the coutxge to resign once he under- stood where its money camie from, and Professor Eva AlbermaaLt.er followed suit. The only two 'medically qualified members of the board kft are the chairman, Sir John Butterfield, and Professor Arthur Buller. Thc first and most important argument.against taking money from this trust is that undeserved respectability is given to the industry. Professor Hilary Ro.e of Bradford University recogaisai this and recently sent back to the trust the £3Q 000 that she had been granted for researching into the alcohol probkms of wotnen, an under-researched sub jcct for which she has had great difficulty finding alternative fund- ing. Yet some of the most em.inent of British medical rescanchers (including those who have dflae important research into alcohol addiction and tobacco smoking) con- rinue to rake money from the trust and must have thought through the implications. The second argument is that money from the trust may buy off an influential and articulate opponent. The trust does not put any constraints on publication, but a suoce invidious worry is that researchers may be constrained in what they say generally and publicly about health and smoking-if nothing else, it is impolite to "bite ttaehaad that feeds." A11 those who cake money from the trust will be confident that they ur not so constrained, but the world is full of people who arc confident that they are not in the least in$uenced by advertising. But they are. The third argument is that this dirty money will influence the research. Few sponsoring organisations are so unsubtk as voi.UME 291 Na 6511 PticE 1743 I , r. . I ~- o --a ; m m ~ ? L.

---