Back in late May, I posted an opinion piece suggesting that The New York Times was correct in questioning the contractual relationship between Virginia Commonwealth University and Philip Morris USA. VCU seemed to be giving away the shop with research contracts that forbade discussion of their existence and required VCU to inform the tobacco giant right away if regulators or the media asked questions.
In Richmond, of course, the latter wasn’t really necessary since the Times-Dispatch, whose top brass has tight ties to VCU, decided there was no story after a very cursory look. I, on the other hand, started getting phone calls and e-mails from current and former members of the VCU community who were greatly concerned about their university and their own careers if VCU was seen as a supplicant for Big Tobacco. VCU’s reputation was already being trashed in the national research blogosphere.
Thus began a month-long reporting effort funded by Jim Bacon, the newly appointed editor of R’Biz, the business news component of richmond.com which operates R’Biz. The story, “In Pursuit of the Golden Leaf,” is available on today’s richmond.com.
- VCU’s medical school and predecessor schools had such tight ties with the American Tobacco Company in the 1930s and 1940s that it funded just about the entire pharmacology staffs. So dramatic were the ties that a Stanford University professor is titling an entire chapter on VCU “Sold, American” in his upcoming book on tobacco research. The less-than-flattering title suggest that the Medical College of Virginia had been bought completely by tobacco interests
- VCU started to improve its research situation in 2000 after a debacle in which federal regulators shut down all human research at all of its schools. The academic research ringer hired to help boosted R&D at VCU but she left in 2005 critical of new ties between the school and Philip Morris USA.
- Dr. Eugene Trani, president of VCU, and his staff were greatly involved in “Operation Peat Moss,” a secret and ultimately successful plan to convince Philip Morris USA to locate a major research facility at the faltering Virginia Biotechnology Research Park instead of the Research Triangle in North Carolina in 2004 and 2005.
- While Philip Morris claims that much of the research it does in Richmond is limited to smokeless products such as snuff, evidence shows it is involved in a major effort to use respiration devices used in cigarette research as vehicles for dispensing drugs through the lungs to fight such diseases as diabetes.
- Both the University of Virginia and Duke have accepted far more research money from Philip Morris than VCU has. But unlike VCU, they insisted on controlling the research and make their relations public.
- Some VCU faculty say there are fearful of Trani’s wrath if they speak out against the Philip Morris contracts. Yet, there appears to be great confusion on campus about what is going on. Trani’s absence at Havard this summer isn’t helping.
- Trani has appointed a task force to explore his school’s corporate contracts. But the very administrator who oversaw negotiations with Philip Morris is heading the task force, which has decided he is not a conflict of interest. It remains to be seen if the task force will force change or sweep the controversy under the rug. The first public meeting is slated for July 16.
There’s a lot more in the opus available on line. Check it out.
Peter Galuszka
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