My last post generated considerable e-mail traffic from members of the VCU community and I learned of a faculty meeting on June 19 to discuss it. Uninvited, I went to it and was allowed to stay if I respected the participants’ desire for confidentiality. Here are excerpts from a post I did for R’Biz on richmond.com:
Virginia Commonwealth University could risk its national reputation among scientific researchers, its ability to win research grant money and its credibility in the local community if it continues with secretive research agreements with Philip Morris USA, a group of VCU faculty discussed at an on-campus meeting yesterday.
Eighteen faculty and researchers came to the meeting at the Student Commons building to discuss concerns stemming from a “research service agreement” that VCU entered into in 2006 with the locally-based tobacco firm. The terms of the agreements forbid discussion about the contracts and require VCU to immediately alert Philip Morris if the news media asks about them.
The existence of the research contracts was revealed in a front page article in the New York Times last month, touching off a controversy about the manner in which VCU conducts research. Since then, VCU has been castigated by experts from other research institutions across the country and among informal blogs linking the VCU community with other scientists. VCU President Eugene Trani says that the agreements are not basic research but are commonly-used consulting agreements. According to Trani, the secrecy and special conditions involved with the contracts are necessary because of proprietary material involved.
At the meeting, the faculty discussed rumors and fears that seem to be abounding at VCU. It was said that faculty and administrators are so fearful of retribution if they question the tobacco contracts that they have been using their cell phones instead of the university phone system to talk about the matter and have been considering trying to file documents to protect themselves with the university human resources department.
A source of frustration for the faculty, they said, is that they cannot get information clarifying Philip Morris’s relationship or future relationship with several major VCU health projects, including the Massey Cancer Center, the Women’s Health Center and the proposed School of Public Health.
Some faculty involved in community outreach noted that if VCU specialists try to promote health in inner cities or other neighborhoods, their credibility could be compromised. It was pointed out, for example, that if VCU workers try to encourage children at Boys and Girls Clubs not to start smoking, they might have a difficult time if it is known that VCU encourages tobacco funding of its research.
Trani has appointed an internal task force to review VCU’s corporate-sponsored research and prepare a report by Oct. 1. The report will later be sent to the school’s Board of Visitors.
One possible point of conflict involves Dr. Francis Macrina, VCU’s vice president for research, who is heading the investigative committee into corporate funding. Faculty members raised questions about possible conflicts of interest within the review committee. They noted that Macrina is head of the review committee although he oversaw the negotiations of the contracts that touched off the corporate funding controversy.
The research service contracts with Philip Morris involve a total of about $284,000 and involve studies of pulmonary disease and wastewater pollution. VCU provided this reporter with copies of the Master Service Agreement under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act, but refused to provide specific “task orders” that give details about the actual work to be done.
For more details, see R’Biz in richmond.com.
— Peter Galuszka
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