May 22, 2008

Secrecy Shields Industry-Financed Tobacco Research at Virginia Commonwealth U.

While some universities have decided to shun research grants from tobacco companies — or, like the University of California, insisted on unusually high standards of disclosure when accepting such grants — Virginia Commonwealth University is among those that have taken the opposite tack. Not only does it continue to take such money but it is also allowing the sponsor, Philip Morris USA, to shroud the research in secrecy.

The contract for the research projects, according to today’s New York Times, bars professors from publishing the results of their studies, or even talking about them, without Philip Morris’s permission. Both the company and the university are based in Richmond, Va. The research involves studies of how to identify early warning signs of pulmonary disease, and ways to keep nitrogen and phosphorus from tobacco-leaf processing from draining into rivers.

“There is restrictive language in here,” said Francis L. Macrina, Virginia Commonwealth’s vice president for research, according to the Times. He also acknowledged that many provisions of the contract violated the university’s guidelines for industry-sponsored research. “In the end, it was language we thought we could agree to. It’s a balancing act.”

The company said it had similar arrangements with other universities but declined to identify them to the newspaper. —Goldie Blumenstyk

Comments

1. This is very sad. Clearly VCU has sold out and abandoned all academic standards. Allowing a corporation to control and vet the results of scientific studies!? And especially a corporation which has a history of distorting findings and repressing and hiding results! How long did they deny the smoking lung cancer link?!! Further, allowing any corporation to control a university’s research in this manner is inexcusable. This is a sad commentary on VCU. Hopefully this is not the tip of the iceberg but I am afraid I may be wrong.

   — depressed    May 22, 04:17 PM    #

2. Francis P. Church was correct: Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Clause.

   — Henry    May 22, 04:46 PM    #

3. VCU’s administration violated the institution’s own reasonable publication and disclosure rules when accepting the terms of this research contract. The problem isn’t the rules at VCU, but the people who are charged with upholding them. To me it is incidental that the sponsor is a tobacco company. The main issue is that restrictions on discussing research and having sponsor approval of publication should never be accepted by a research university. How am I supposed to trust the accuracy of any research coming from a university that allow such restraints?

   A second principle is that all grants and contracts should be disclosed. What other secret research contracts has VCU accepted whose existence can’t be disclosed for fear of damaging the school?

   It is not fair for VCU’s researchers to suffer the loss in credibility of their research that this revelation brings. The adminstration there needs to clean house and get rid of those who caved in to unethical sponsor demands, terminate research contracts that violate their own guidelines (presumably renegotiating them to meet the guidelines), and to disclose what grants and contacts they do have. All of those things must happen to restore VCUs academic credibility.

   — Thomas Bjorkman    May 22, 06:02 PM    #

4. Philip Morris has retained the right to “snuff out” the professors’ ability to publish or talk about the research without the company’s permission.

   Sorry, I will trust absolutely nothing that will be “permitted” to see the light of day in this partnership.

   VCU’s administrators should be ashamed at the diminution of credibility they have caused the institution.

   — Dr. J    May 22, 06:11 PM    #

5. “The devil went down to Virginia, he was looking for a soul to steal…” and obviously found several at VCU. Dr. J. is spot on when he says there is no reason to trust anything that comes out of this work. Remind anyone of the EPA under Bush and the politics of who’s right versus what’s right? The truth is apolitical and we can hopefully applaud all these future inductees into their warmer amoral place.

   — UCS Dave    May 23, 07:24 AM    #

6. Is the VP for Research at VCU the same Francis Macrina who wrote “Scientific Integrity: Text and Cases in Responsible Conduct of Research”?

   — rsb    May 23, 03:12 PM    #

7. I’m a bit confused, I am a student at a public university in Wisconsin and I do undergraduate collaborative research with a professor in biochemistry. One of my friends does research down the hall from me in chemistry; he has a partnership with a commercial chemical company and tells me that they are not allowed to discuss their research either… can anyone explain these policies?

   — TDL    May 23, 04:06 PM    #

8. rsb – yes, it is the same Francis Macrina. He also received ORI funding (R01NS042494) to study the effectiveness of RCR teaching on authorship and publication practices, and he is a co-investigator on a current ORI grant award (R01NR009962, PI Michael Kalichman) studying standards of scientific conduct in data management, collaboration, and authorship.

   — mwe    May 23, 05:47 PM    #

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