SUN EDITORIAL:

Joe Camel meets academia

Virginia university enters secret deal to conduct research for largest tobacco company

Tuesday, May 27, 2008 | 2:07 a.m.

Virginia Commonwealth University’s rules on industry-funded research would seem to be straightforward: “University faculty and students must be free to publish their results.”

Nonetheless, the university, without the knowledge of most of its students and faculty, entered into a contract in 2006 to conduct research paid for by the nation’s largest tobacco company, Philip Morris.

The terms of the contract, disclosed last week by The New York Times, bar professors at Virginia Commonwealth University from publishing the results of their research and discussing with anyone what they’re working on — unless they get the consent of Philip Morris. So much for academic freedom.

Universities increasingly have come under scrutiny for industry-funded research and whether those ties skew their findings to please their deep-pocketed patrons. The Times notes that this contract is highly unusual and renews questions about the lengths a university, desperate to improve its prestige as a research institution, will go to grab what are increasingly becoming scarce research dollars.

Obviously, in the case of Virginia Commonwealth University, it is willing to stoop pretty low. As if that’s not bad enough, the research being undertaken sounds ominous. According to the Times, the secret contract with Philip Morris would have the university conduct research that, in part, would determine whether new tobacco products could be developed with reduced risks.

Great. So Virginia Commonwealth University is going to be in bed with Philip Morris, potentially helping it design tobacco products that the company could one day tout as being “safer.” Haven’t we already hooked enough generations of Americans to this deadly habit? And has Virginia Commonwealth University, in its chase after research dollars, forgotten it’s a university?