Research Funding – Universities and Tobacco – The Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society

Universities and Tobacco

IV. Research Grants, Scholarships, Professorships, Naming Opportunities, Stock Dividends

Introduction by Philip Huang, MD, MPH, Director of the Dallas County (Texas) Health and Human Services Department since 2019. Dr. Huang previously served as Medical Director for the Austin (Texas) Public Health Department. From 2015 to 2018, he was Chair of the FDA Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee. As an MPH student at Harvard, Dr. Huang led the effort to urge the university to divest the tobacco stocks in its endowment. He led a similar campaign at Rice University, of which he is an alumnus. (0:55)

*Like the vast majority of universities, U.S. academia’s largest retirement provider of financial services, TIAA (Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association), hasn’t sold its tobacco stocks, which are simply too lucrative…

*Medical schools need money to fund life-saving research. Tobacco companies, whose products cause lethal diseases, including cancer, heart disease, and stroke, donate part of their profits to universities to pay for that research…

*Several universities in the U.S. have scholarships, professorships, hospitals, and even medical schools that have been endowed by and named in honor of tobacco industry figures…

“Both the cash flows and the stability of the tobacco and food markets make Philip Morris a financially sound investment… It’s an incredibly powerful company in that sense, and its return is hard to beat. Everyone, even people who are absolutely morally and ethically against smoking may end up buying stock like that because it’s unbeatable.”

–Bala Dharan, professor of accounting, Rice University, 1990

The Ethics of Accepting Tobacco Industry Funding for Research

“Ongoing Relationships Between the Tobacco Industry and Universities: An Insidious Obstacle to Tobacco Control”

PowerPoint presentation with 117 slides by Alan Blum, MD at the National Conference on Tobacco or Health in Minneapolis,
August 2019. A copy of the detailed notes and outline for this presentation and for the exhibition as a whole is in the Resources section.

(The audio recording is of an earlier version of this presentation that was given at the National Conference on Tobacco or Health, also in Minneapolis, in October 2007, as part of a workshop on the tobacco industry’s campus recruitment activities. Ken Dahlgren, MPH, long involved in Community Engagement for Tobacco-Free Chautauqua, New York, was a co-presenter. The recording of this session is one hour and twenty-seven minutes.)

“Some med school faculty also work for tobacco giant”

Article by The Associated Press about eight scientists at RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company who also serve as adjunct faculty members at Bowman-Gray School of Medicine
American Medical News
Circa 1995

“John Robinson, PhD, sees no conflict between his job as a scientist at R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company and his work as a medical school faculty member.

“I don’t consider myself a scientist at Reynolds part of the time and a scientist at Bowman Gray part of the time,’ he said. ‘I consider myself a scientist.’

“Dr. Robinson is one of eight scientists at the tobacco company who are also adjunct faculty members at the Bowman Gray Medical School’s Department of Physiology and Pharmacology.

“‘We’re a health-promoting industry and they’re an illness-causing injury,’ said David Altman, PhD, a professor of public health at the medical school. ‘I think that having adjunct faculty members from Reynolds Tobacco Company makes this just stand out among all medical schools in the U.S. and I don’t see that notoriety as being helpful to us.'”

“Wisconsin proposal would raise cigarette tax to help support medical schools”

News article
TOBACCO (tobacco industry trade weekly)
May 9, 1969

“MADISON, WIS. — An amended medical education bill that would raise cigarette taxes to pay for medical schools was introduced recently in the state senate by Sen. Gerald Lorge, Bear Creek Republican.

The measure would carry out most of the recommendations of the governor’s task force on medical education. It was co-sponsored by 22 of the other 33 senators.

It is similar to an earlier measure submitted by Mr. Lorge in that it would provide state aid to expand and improve the University of Wisconsin and Marquette medical schools and establish a new medical school to accommodate at least 100 students.

Its purpose is to increase the number of doctors and other persons providing medical care in Wisconsin…

Mr. Lorge said the proposed increase of three cents on the present 10-cent-a-pack cigarette tax should adequately finance the program.”

“Tobacco Industry Group Gives Research Grants” (3 pages)

Article in TOBACCO
February 1, 1963

“Fifty-two additional research grants for support of studies designed to give new leads to lung cancer and other health problems, and a further increase in available research funds were announced last week in New York by Timothy V. Hartnett, Chairman of the Tobacco Industry Research Committee.

“The Scientific Advisory Board, which directs the T.I.R.C’s research program, has now awarded 3788 grants — 181 initial grants and 107 renewals — to independent scientists in some 90 medical schools, laboratories and hospitals throughout the country.

“Mr. Hartnett said the committee also has appropriated an additional $500,000 for its research fund, bringing the total to $6,250,000. The T.I.R.C., organized in 1954 to support scientific research related to tobacco use, as periodically appropriated funds to finance all grants-in-aid recommended by the Scientific Advisory Board…”

“Cullman Heads Trade Drive for Medical Schools”

News article
The Tobacco Leaf (tobacco industry trade weekly)
December 11, 1954

“Joseph F. Cullman, Jr., president and director of Cullman Bros. [cigar leaf tobacco dealers], has accepted the chairmanship of the Committee of American Industry, which is spearheading a nationwide appeal to raise $10,000,000 for the country’s 80 medical schools. Mounting deficits are threatening not only the schools’ teaching and research programs but also their high academic standards.

“Active, too, in many clubs, Mr. Cullman is treasurer and trustee of Mount Sinai Hospital… [and] a director of … Hillside Hospital…

“Among those working with Mr. Cullman will be…James R. Coon, vice president of the American Tobacco Co.; M. Lewis, executive vice president of Brown & Williamson; J. Whitney Peterson, president of the U.S. Tobacco Co….”

“TIRC Medical Student Fellowships Announced”

Article in TOBACCO
April 5, 1963

“The nation’s accredited medical schools and colleges of osteopathy are again being offered student research fellowships under a Tobacco Industry Research Committee program that has already assisted nearly 600 students.

“Dr. Clarence Cook Little, Scientific Director of T.I.R.C., said recently that this marks the ninth consecutive year in which the fellowships are being made available to encourage medical students to undertake some research project, whether or not they intend to seek a career in research…”

Related article in TOBACCO, March 29, 1963::

“Medical scholarships Donated by K.R. Edwards”

“HENDERSON, N.C. — Kenneth Raynold Edwards…head of the K.R. Edwards Tobacco Company of Richmond, Va., has made an initial gift of $20,000 to the Medical Foundation of North Carolina for scholarships in the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in Chapel Hill. The gift was accepted today at the joint meeting of the UNC Medical Alumni and the Medical Foundation…”

“MEDICINE’S UNEASY MONEY”

Article by Mark Metherell about the ethics of acceptance by Australian universities of $500,000 per year in funding from the tobacco industry’s Australian Tobacco Research Foundation
THE AGE (Melbourne, Victoria, Australia)
June 1982

“CIGARETTE packets tell us that smoking is a health hazard. An increasing number of medical scientists is also asking whether research grants financed by cigarette sales do anything for their professional health…

“Scientists are questioning whether they should accept grants which came from the sales of the very products causing the death and disease for which the researchers are seeking solutions

“Under most scrutiny are grants from the Australian Tobacco Research Foundation…

“When The Age asked the doyen of Australia’s medical research administration, Professor Sir Gustav Nossal, the head of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, whether he would accept funds from the Tobacco Research Foundation, his immediate response was: ‘Certainly not.

“‘I feel I would be seriously compromised by taking their funds.

“‘On the other hand, I would not criticise another person who had examined his/her conscience and come to another conclusion.’

“Earlier this year the chairman of the Australian Tobacco Research Foundation, Emeritus Professor Bickerton Blackburn, announced grants totaling $335,185 for 18 research projects to be conducted in 1983 at 15 Australian universities or teaching hospitals.

“Professor Blackburn, a prominent physician and former professor of medicine at Sydney University, said the research produced through foundation grants showed that the foundation was worthwhile…

“The Australian Tobacco Research Foundation was established in 1970 by the three Australian cigarette manufacturers ‘to support research into the relationship between tobacco smoking and human health in its widest context.’ It has contributed $3 million since 1970…

“A trustee of the Tobacco Research Foundation and member of its scientific advisory committee, Professor Mick Rand, said that ‘a great deal of the pronouncements (on smoking) are based on emotion and personal dislike rather than on hard scientific evidence’…”

“When researchers accept funding from the tobacco industry, do ethics go up in smoke?” (6 pages)

Article by Howard Wolinsky
New York State Journal of Medicine
July 1985, pages 451-454

“Perhaps only one institution in the world, the University of Sydney in Australia, has publicly disclosed its de bate over the ethics of accepting tobacco money. According to the Medical Journal of Australia (1982;2:391-392), the university decided in 1982 to turn down financial support from any tobacco company if the firm is publicly identified as the source.

“According to [Sheldon C.] Sommers [scientific director of the industry-funded Council for Tobacco Research (CTR)], ‘Ten, 15 years ago, there were some organizations, such as Rockefeller University, that didn’t want CTR money, but that’s all gone by. [Now,] there’s not a single organization, a university, a research institute, a college, that turns down the money.’

“Rockefeller University apparently has changed its tune, because it now has an R.J. Reynolds Research Fellowship. Current projects funded by the CTR are being conducted at the New England Deaconess Hospital, the University of California at Berkeley, Sidney Farber Cancer Institute, Johns Hopkins Oncology Center and the university’s School of Hygiene and Public Health, Yale University School of Medicine, Harvard School of Medicine, and Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

“Since it was founded in 1954, CTR claims to have spent $83 million on 865 projects in 279 medical schools, hospital, and research institutions…

“The council may have avoided criticism, in part, because the researchers it funds follow a practice known as ‘piggybacking’ or mingling money from a variety of sources. The council’s annual report shows that it is co-funding research with the American Cancer Society, the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and other leading organizations

“Joanne Luoto, MD, director of the US Office on Smoking and Health, stated that the council ‘is buying legitimacy when its funds are mixed with those from NCI and other federal agencies…’Funding research helps the industry keep alive the notion that the dangers of smoking are still in question. As long as they keep funding research and people keep doing research, even if it’s into the subcellular molecular basis of carcinogenesis, John Q. Public is not going to know that distinction so he’s going to think, “Hmmm, they haven’t proved that it causes cancer yet.”‘”

“THE COUNCIL FOR TOBACCO RESEARCH — U.S.A., INC. (11 pages)

January 23, 1985

GRANT APPLICATION NO. 1687R1
CANCER

TO: The committee comprising Drs. Howley, Lynch and Sato

SUBJECT: Harold K. Varmus, M.D., Univ. Of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA
1st Renewal Application N. 1687R1
“Functional Analysis of Cellular Oncogenes Activated During Tumorigenesis’

HISTORY
Application No. 1687 requesting $137,050 for the first of a three year project was approved, at a level of $120,000 by the SAB in April 1984. Budget estimates for the second and third year were $173,790 and $193,386, respectively.

REQUEST
Application No. 1687R1 requests $133,099 for the 2nd year…”

Identified by Donald Shopland in the Truth Tobacco Industry Documents, February 26, 2025
https://www.industrydocuments.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=lmkc0070

Other documents included here: 1. A letter from Dr. Varmus to The Council for Tobacco Research (CTR) on April 20, 1971, accepting an invitation to attend CTR’s conference, “Alterations in Gene Expression Carcinogenesis.”

2.A letter from the president of CTR to Dr. Varmus on May 7, 1985, informing him that he has been awarded a 1-year renewal grant of $133,099.

3.A letter from Dr. Varmus to the Research Director of CTR describing the basis of his request for CTR funding for at least 3 years at $125,000 a year.

4.A letter from James S. Glenn, MD, CEO of CTR to James S. Todd, MD, executive vice president of the American Medical Association (AMA) on February 1, 1995, responding to “your misleading portrayal of the Council for Tobacco Research-U.S.A., Inc. as a public relations pawn of the tobacco industry” and citing the name of one scientist, “Dr. Harold Varmus, Director of the National Institutes of Health, [who] “incidentally, is a former recipient of CTR grant which supported his early investigations, and he is one of three CTR grantees who have gone on to win the Nobel Prize in Medicine.”

5.An announcement in October 1998 by the Scientific Advisory Board of CTR congratulating Drs. Louis J. Ignarro and Ferid Murad for receiving the 1998 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology and noting their having received financial support from CTR, “as have three other Nobel prize winner,” including Dr. Varmus. A bar graph shows that there were 255 “Active CTR grantees and scholars in 1998.

Curator’s Note: On November 23, 1998, the Council for Tobacco Research was dissolved as part of the Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) between the tobacco industry and the state attorneys general, who had sued the tobacco industry claiming that the cigarette manufacturers were responsible for the public health burden caused by cigarette smoking and should therefore reimburse the states for the associated medical expenses paid by Medicaid.

Donald Shopland was a member of the staff of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General, which produced the landmark report on smoking and health in 1964. Over a career in the Public Health Service that spanned five decades, he served as an editor of 17 reports of the Surgeon General on smoking and health (and a reviewer on all 34 reports issued from 1967 to 2014), interim director of the Office on Smoking and Health, and advisor on smoking and health at the National Cancer Institute. Interviewed for this exhibition on February 27, 2025, Shopland expressed his dismay over researchers who sought funding from the tobacco industry, even as the industry’s Council for Tobacco Research was downplaying cigarette smoking as the leading avoidable cause of cancer:

“One can perhaps understand medical schools taking tobacco money in the years before the release of the Surgeon General’s report in 1964 and maybe also in the first few years of the report in order to continue confirming its conclusions about the dire health consequences of smoking. But for this to still be occurring upwards of 50 years later is just wrong on so many levels.

“How sad, too, that in 1980, Dr. Harold Varmus, by then a mid-career professor at the University of California at San Francisco (who would go on to receive the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1989 for his contributions to the field of retroviruses and oncogenes, to serve as director of the National institutes of Health from 1993 to 1999, and to head the National Cancer Institute from 2010 to 2015) apparently had no scruples about applying for and accepting tobacco industry funding.

“I think a better subtitle for this exhibition would be ‘Blood Money.'”

Curator’s Note: On March 2, 2025, and again on March 19, the Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society sent a lengthy email to Dr. Varmus at Weil Cornell Medicine, where he is listed as Lewis Thomas University Professor of Medicine, requesting a comment for this exhibition about his having sought and received several hundred thousand dollars in funding from The Council for Tobacco Research in the 1980s. If Dr. Varmus submits a comment, then it will be added to the exhibition.

“REPORT
of
THE COUNCIL FOR TOBACCO RESEARCH – U.S.A., Inc.
1990″ (24 pages, including the list the hundreds of active and completed research projects and the recipients of these tobacco funds.)

“The Council for Tobacco Research — U.S.A., Inc. is the sponsoring agency of a program of research into questions of tobacco use and health. It is the outgrowth of an organization formed early in 1954 by tobacco manufacturers, growers and warehousemen. Research support has been mainly through a program of grants-in-aid supplemented by contracts for research with institutions and laboratories. The Council does not operate any research facility…

[Curator’s Note: The Scientific Advisory Board in 1990 was comprised of 15 individuals (8 MD’s, 5 PhD’s, and one MD, PhD) at 13 medical schools in the US and one each in Canada and the United Kingdom.]

“The Council continued to provide substantial funding for research in 1990, receiving $16,000,000, an increase of $2,000,000 from 1989, from its members [the cigarette manufacturers]. The sum brought to more than $165,000,000 the Council’s support of research since it was founded. [Curator’s Note: In 1990 alone, the tobacco industry spent $3.9 billion on cigarette advertising and promotion] The funds have been for 1,174 original studies by 784 independent investigators in more than 300 medical schools, hospitals, and research centers.”

“REPORT
of
THE COUNCIL FOR
TOBACCO RESEARCH – U.S.A., Inc.
1986” (4 pages, including the abstract of a published study supported by CTR on which Dr. Varmus is the senior author)

“Big Tobacco funded cancer research”

News article without byline
The Tampa Tribune
December 2, 1998

“A cancer researcher got testy Tuesday when a tobacco lawyer suggested some scientists were willing to forfeit a possible breakthrough by refusing tobacco funding for their work.

“‘That’s ridiculous. That’s absolutely absurd,’ K. Michael Cummings snapped during his second day of testimony at the first class-action lawsuit by smokers to reach trial.

“Cummings, director of tobacco control at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, N.Y., said funds can be found elsewhere for promising research. He said ‘a handful’ of researchers at Roswell had accepted funds from the Council for Tobacco Research over the years, but Roswell scientists have since voted to stop taking tobacco money. The council, an industry group named as a defendant in the lawsuit, was formed under another name in 1954.

“Cummings, who says he’d love to eliminate smoking, appeared on behalf of at least 500,000 sick Florida smokers who want at least $200 billion in damages from six tobacco companies and two industry groups…”

“Tobacco Council’s Objectivity Questioned”

Article by Philip J. Hilts
The New York Times, page A16
May 27, 1994
Identified in The Truth Tobacco Industry Documents
https://www.industrydocuments.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=kxbk0048

“The chairman of the Council for Tobacco Research, which identifies itself as an independent research organization run by a board of distinguished scientists, testified today that in addition to financing legitimate scientific research, the council had also carried out ‘special projects’ that tobacco company lawyers recommended.

“Congressional staff members who closely monitor the tobacco industry said it was the first time they had heard an official associated with tobacco companies publicly acknowledge that the council had served as a conduit for research suggested by lawyers for the tobacco companies.

“Since the tobacco industry established and began financing the council in 1954, both the industry and the council itself have referred to it as being run entirely by a board of distinguished scientists. But for almost as long, anti-smoking advocates have claimed that it is primarily a public relations vehicle for the industry and is partly run by tobacco company lawyers and not by scientists..

“In a hearing today before the subcommittee on Health and the Environment of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, both views were defended.

“Unfamiliar With History

“The chairman of the Council for Tobacco Research, Dr. James F. Glenn, a urologist who has …headed the group for four years, maintained under questioning that he knew little of its history, but said that he was proud of the $220 million worth of research that it had financed over the past 40 years.

“He said that the group had sponsored nearly 1,400 studies, and that three of the scientists who had worked for the council, including the current director of the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Harold Varmus, who did research under the council’s auspices, later won the Nobel prize…”

“CRC [Cancer Research Campaign] forced to compromise over tobacco funding ban”

Article by David Firn
Nature Medicine
February 1999

“After 15 months of wrangling, the Cancer Research Campaign (CRC) has reached agreement with British universities on a policy that it hopes will prevent tobacco companies from funding medical and scientific research in the UK. The policy, which comes into force on April 6th, rules out CRC funding for scientists who work in close proximity to, or share equipment with, those who are funded by the tobacco industry. However, the ban does not extend to research carried out in separate departments within the same university—a distinct climb down of the CRC’s original goal…”

Cartoon caption: “Yes, the dry ice is smoking, but I can assure you it is not funded by the tobacco industry.”

“Tobacco Money Lights Up a Debate” (5 pages)

Article by Jon Cohen
Science
April 26, 1996

“…Others, however, are uneasy about having received tobacco industry support. Varmus, who received CTR money from 1984 to 1986 to study oncogenes, says he was not comfortable taking the money then, but his lab was deeply in debt. ‘Even at the time, I didn’t want them coming out and laying claim to me,’ says Varmus, who thinks the argument that the industry uses researchers like himself to further nonscientific aims ‘has legitimacy.’

“…A growing number of institutions are wrestling with the issue, too. NIH, which currently has only one researcher receiving CTR funds, through the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’ ‘gift fund,’ is debating the issue. ‘At this point, I wouldn’t want to take their money until there was further discussion with the Administration,’ says Varmus. National Cancer Institute (NCI) Director Richard Klausner says he personally would be ‘very uncomfortable’ with his institute accepting money from CTR ‘because of appearances and all sorts of other issues.'”

Donald Shopland comments, March 3, 2025 (click):

“I recall a story in The Washington Post when Varmus was named either Director of National Institutes of Health (NIH) or the National Cancer Institute (NCI), in which he said he really struggled with taking money from the tobacco industry, but it was a way for him and his team to continue to work together on all this great research. A sort of the end justifies the means kind of thing — something you hear all the time from people in academia when their research is being threatened.

“The late cancer prevention researcher Joe Cullen [1936-1990] knew about the commingling of CTR and NIH funding by some researchers such as Varmus when he and Peter Greenwald finally convinced the NCI leadership in the early-1980s to reprogram $100+ million in funds to find better ways to motivate people to stop smoking and kids not to start. Sacrilege! Quite a few folks walking the halls at NCI complained that such a shift toward preventing cancer threatened the livelihoods of dozens of top cancer research teams, and all that brain power would be lost if Cullen’s plan was implemented. Joe retorted that ‘This is the National Institutes of Health, not the National Institutes of Research. If we don’t do this, who will?’ One can quibble about the relative effectiveness of that first government-funded initiative, the Smoking Tobacco and Cancer Program, but you can’t argue with the fact he did try to do something other than just shoving another $100 million into studying what caused lung cancer or the carcinogenic properties of tobacco smoke or some other issue where we already had hundreds of published studies.

“But it was the same old story: we fund research because it’s really well-thought-out design and analysis, carried out by well-respected scientists. Never mind if it’s really needed or moves the needle forward to some sort of solution or can be applied in some fashion. That was always someone else’s responsibility like the CDC or ACS [American Cancer Society]. NIH’s mission is mostly to fund as many grants as possible which maintains both its power and influence, because everyone and his uncle supports ‘research’ regardless if it has any public health application or impact.”

“Hard Habit to Break:
M.D. Anderson just can’t say no to federal funding from the tobacco industry” (3 pages)

Article by D.J. Wilson
Houston Press
December 1-7, 1994
(Also letter to the editor, December 8-14, 1994)

“M.D. Anderson banned the sale of cigarettes back in the mid-1970s, becoming one of the first hospitals in the country to do so. The University of Texas-affiliated institution also led the way in creating the smoke-free environment that exists today in most large buildings when its president, Dr. Charles LeMaistre, outlawed smoking inside M.D. Anderson’s facilities in 1989.

“‘Everybody here,’ explains Steve Stuyck, M.D. Anderson’s vice-president for public affairs, ‘abhors tobacco and is opposed to the marketing of tobacco products.’

“As Dr. Joe Dunnington has learned, however, that abhorrence is not so pronounced that it keeps scientists at M.D. Anderson from taking money from the Council for Tobacco Research, an arm of the tobacco industry that has been censured by no less an authority than the American Medical Association, an organization not exactly known for its cutting-edge activism.

“Dunnington has been working — unsuccessfully — to wean M.D. Anderson, considered one of the nation’s premier cancer research and treatment hospitals, from its reliance on tobacco-tainted funding. Last summer, the radiologist stood before his colleagues on M.D. Anderson’s faculty senate and delivered an impassioned plea urging the cancer center not to accept research grants from the Council for Tobacco Research. His speech carried the day, as the faculty senators voted 15-12 in favor of his recommendation.

“But Dunnington’s eloquence was for naught. M.D. Anderson’s research council, an internal group of faculty department heads who oversee research funding at the center, refused to go along with the faculty senate’s vote. And without that group’s backing, Dunnington’s long-standing ambition to ban tobacco dollars was doomed, since it was assumed that LeMaistre, who helped write the landmark 1963 Surgeon General’s Report on the dangers of smoking, would change the institution’s policy only if the research council supported the faculty senate vote…

“Dunnington estimates that the Council for Tobacco Research — which he dismisses as a ‘fraud’ perpetrated by the tobacco industry — has funded almost $500,000 worth of research at M.D. Anderson in recent years…

From 1954 through 1991, the council’s board of scientific advisors has bestowed funding of more than $185 million for 1,246 original articles by more than 850 scientists. That’s a lot of money, but it pales in significance to the 1993 advertising budget of the tobacco industry—about $5.2 billion…”

“MD Anderson’s Acceptance of Research Funding by the Tobacco Industry, 1995” (07:08)

Investigative news story by “City Under Siege” reporter Ned Hibberd
Fox-26 News (KIRV), Houston, Texas
1995

Ned Hibberd, KIRV-TV reporter: There was a time when that connection [between cigarette smoking and cancer] wasn’t well understood and when advertisements on the back of LIFE Magazine could claim “More Doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette.” In those days, tobacco companies could downplay the health risks of smoking by associating their names with the medical establishment. But those days are gone, aren’t they? Not at MD Anderson [Cancer Center].

Joel Dunnington, MD, radiologist at MD Anderson Cancer Center: They’re taking money from an industry that kills 418,000 people in the United States and an estimated 3 million people a year in the world.

Ned Hibberd: That industry is the tobacco industry. It’s a profitable business, one that reaps billions upon billions of dollars every year. And in 1994 the industry handed out just under $20 million of these dollars through an organization called the Council for tobacco Research or CTR. The CTR’s latest report lists 13 MD Anderson scientists who sought out and received grant money from the tobacco companies…

Joe Dunnington, MD: The question you have to ask again is whether the research you are doing is as important or more so than the benefit that the tobacco industry is getting from using you and your institution’s name when they go in front of the courts, or when they go in front of the press, or if they go in front of Congress.

William Campbell [Philip Morris chairman, before a Congressional subcommittee in 1994]: Cigarette smoking is not addictive…

“Proposal for Support of Biomedical Research by Philip Morris” (8 pages)

Philip Morris Companies, Inc. inter-office memorandum from R. William Murray [vice-chairman] and Murray H. Bring [senior in-house attorney] to Hamish Maxwell [chairman and chief executive officer]
December 5, 1989

Identified in the Truth Tobacco Industry Documents by Joel Dunnington, MD
https://www.industrydocuments.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=fpfg0128

“[W]e recommend that Philip Morris contribute $100 million to a newly created Philip Morris Scientific Foundation for the purpose of awarding research fellowship grants to twenty recipients a year. The income from the initial endowment, approximately $7-8 million a year, would be used to fund the grants and to pay for the administrative costs of the Foundation. The grantees would be selected by an independent Scientific Advisory Board and would be young, postdoctoral Ph.D.’s and M.D,’s who are recognized as having significant potential, but who have not as yet achieved the stature and reputation that would make it possible for them easily to obtain NIH or other grants. Hopefully, a number of the grantees would/be among the next generation of Nobel laureates. Grants would be made to support basic biomedical research, with a principal focus on cancer research. The grants would be unrestricted.

“The size and scope of this program would qualify it as one of the most significant corporate undertakings in America in support of basic scientific research. Accordingly, the creation of the foundation and the launching of the program should be accompanied by appropriate announcements in the scientific and lay media. This would not only serve to publicize the program among prospective applicants, but would also identify Philip Morris as the sponsor of a program which should have an important and meaningful impact on the advancement of scientific research.”

Comment written for this exhibition by Joel Dunnington, MD, retired Professor of Radiology, MD Anderson Cancer Center, where he served as president of the faculty senate in the 1990s. Dr. Dunnington has worked ceaselessly for more than four decades to spur the American Medical Association to expose and oppose universities’ acceptance of tobacco industry funding. (3 pages)

“Smoking Conference Canceled in Dispute Over Sponsorship” (2 pages)

Article by Susan Okie
The Washington Post
June 12, 1986

“A Georgetown University conference on the health effects of tobacco smoke on nonsmokers, scheduled for Saturday, was abruptly canceled this week when several speakers withdrew after learning tobacco companies were helping to pay for the program

“The sponsorship by R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. and Philip Morris Inc. was not mentioned on the advance brochure, and some scientists on the program said they were not told of the companies’ support when invited to speak.

“Georgetown School of Medicine officials denied any attempt to keep the funding secret, and said those who recruited speakers were instructed to inform them of industry support. They said all sponsors should have been listed on the program, in keeping with university policy

“The events leading to the cancellation stirred a tempest among groups involved in public smoking policy, with Georgetown officials charging that the American Lung Association pressured speakers into withdrawing and association spokesmen accusing the university of being too casual about corporate funding…”

“We are deeply disturbed to learn that Georgetown is allowing itself to be used by the tobacco industry to sponsor a supposedly balanced scientific seminar on the health effects of passive or involuntary smoking. We have learned that the seminar is being funded by cigarette manufacturers and organized by their known paid consultants without public acknowledgement…”

From a telegram by James A. Swomley, Managing Director, American Lung Association, to Rev. Timothy S. Healy, S.J., President, Georgetown University and Matthew F. McNulty, Jr., Sc.D., Chancellor, Georgetown Medical Center
June 6, 1986

Curator’s Note: James Swomley [1929-2021] served as the managing director of the American Lung Association from 1980 to 1990.

“GOVERNMENT HEALTH OFFICIALS INVOLVED IN EFFORTS
TO CENSOR DISSENTING SCIENTIFIC VIEWPOINTS;
Tobacco Institute Demands Cabinet-Level Investigation;
Accuses Officials of Abusing Science for Political Ends.” (2 pages)

News release
The Tobacco Institute
December 11, 1986
Identified in the Truth Tobacco Industry Documents by Donald Shopland*, February 26, 2025
https://www.industrydocuments.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=gfxx0146
Also: https://www.industrydocuments.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=srxj0136

“WASHINGTON, December 11, 1986 — The Tobacco Institute announced today that it has asked the Department of Health and Human Services for a formal investigation into evidence that officials of that federal agency and others have attempted to censor the views of independent scientists and abuse science on the question of cigarette smoke in the air and the health of nonsmokers.

“In asking for the investigation, the Institute explained: ‘We deeply regret to report that or efforts to support the objective investigation into this issue have been hampered by atemtps to censor the views of independent scientists … These scientists include employees of Health and Human Services.

“The Tobacco Institute is the trade association representing U.S. cigarette manufacturers…”

*****

*Curator’s Note: In response to questions by the Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society about the canceled Georgetown conference, Donald Shopland wrote the following on February 26, 2025:

“I indeed remember this conference and the fact it was cancelled after it became known that the majority of its funding was from R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., something that was not divulged in any of the early publications announcing the conference. The other Georgetown scientists involved were Drs. Philip Witorsch and Nancy Baltar, recipients of funding from The Tobacco Institute and Philip Morris. At least four of the authors of chapters of the 1986 Surgeon General’s Report, The Health Consequences of Involuntary Smoking, which my office was still actively preparing at the time, had accepted invitations to speak at the conference. I believe Dr. Al Munzer, Director of the Pulmonary Medicine Department at Washington Adventist Hospital and a leader in the American Lung Association, called me and first alerted me about the conference—at that time he didn’t know that so many of the authors of the 1986 Surgeon General’s Report would be attending, as we didn’t usually make that information public until after a report was released.

“I immediately called all of them (and the rest of our Report authors) to let them know the situation and warn them they could not discuss anything related to the 1986 Surgeon General’s Report. I added the caution that any research findings discussed at the conference that might conflict with the conclusions of the Report would probably be used by the industry later on. I could not tell them not to attend, but they needed to be fully aware of the situation and realize how their participation might later be exploited by the industry. After I called them, only Dr. Dietrich Hoffmann (a well-known, respected researcher at the American Health Foundation who, with Dr. Ernst Wynder, contributed much to the early research on smoking and health) said he would still attend. Everyone else said they were going to withdraw.

“The Tobacco Institute sent a letter to the Secretary of Health and Human Services complaining about my interference in the conference and asked for a formal investigation into the matter. But I never experienced any repercussions, and we released our report later that year to much fanfare. And it had a significant impact: whereas in 1986 just 3% of workers’ place of employment employed had a smoke-free policy, within 5 years, this had ballooned to over 40%. Today it is more than 80%.”

“Cigarette grant raises legitimacy questions”

Article by The Associated Press on the ethics of the acceptance by Bowman-Gray School of Medicine of a $1 million research grant from R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company — one of the largest ever given to the school — to study the health effects of a new reduced-smoke cigarette, Eclipse.
Greensboro News & Record
February 9, 1997

“Researchers are… saying the money’s source won’t mean skewing results in the company’s favor.”

****

(Click on the article to see:)

“[SIX YEARS AFTER THEY DIVESTED TOBACCO STOCKS:]
Why do the University of California Regents still cash checks from tobacco racketeers?” (2 pages)

Reproduction of paid advertisement by the Campaign to Defend Academic Integrity
Chronicle of Higher Education
May 4, 2007

The advertisement lists the following U.S. research and teaching institutions that refuse tobacco industry funding: Brigham and Women’s Hospital (Harvard-affiliated, in Boston), Emory University School of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Harvard School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, Louisiana State University School of Public Health, Mayo Clinic, Ohio State University School of Public Health, Roswell Park Cancer Institute, University of Arizona School of Public Health, University of Iowa School of Public Health, and University of Texas-MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Curator’s Note: Although the University of California Board of Regents did not ban the acceptance of tobacco research funding, it adopted new oversight measures in 2007 that required special review and approval procedures for research proposals to tobacco industry funders.

“Tobacco grants funded BU cancer research” (2 pages)

Article by Abbie Ruzicka
The Daily Free Press (Boston University)
March 17, 2008

“Boston University has received more than $3.5 million from tobacco giant Philip Morris since 1995, much of which has directly funded research on the BU Medical Campus [BUMC], according to a university database and research and corporate documents.

“Research done by the BU Cancer Research Center, the School of Medicine’s genetics and genomics department, and the Pulmonary Center cited Philip Morris and its subsidiaries, including the Philip Morris External Research Program {PMERP], as funding sources, according to study and research presentation documents…

“Cancer Research Center Director Douglas Faller received $268,759 from the Philip Morris Foundation for a 2004 study involving cancer treatment, according to a BUMC research report.

“‘I can’t see how any research that I have done plays into any marketing campaign,’ he said, ‘I’m relatively willing to take research funds from anyone that will help me help people.’

“A chain of emails between BU and Philip Morris employees from 2002 discussed plans for the PMERP to fund research at BU.

“‘The grants total a little over $2M; $1M of which goes directly to the University,’ states a June 12, 2002 email sent to Rick Solana, now the senior vice president of research and technology at Philip Morris USA.

“…’I’m not questioning the validity or objectivity of the research,” [BU School of Public Health social and behavioral sciences department Associate Chairman Michael] Siegel said. ‘The problem with this research is that by virtue of taking this money BU is basically allowing itself to be used as a pawn in the marketing scheme that the tobacco companies are playing.’

“Philip Morris launched the External Research Program in 2000 after the U.S. Attorney General’s Office disbanded the industry-wide Council for Tobacco Research and the Center for Indoor Air Research, claiming the groups manipulated research to promote public policies favorable to the industry.

“Philip Morris decided last year to discontinue the ERP, which has drawn criticism from those who believe research funded by the tobacco company promotes its agenda and notified grant recipients last September of the move, according to a Feb. 29 Science magazine article. The program has funded 470 research programs at about 60 medical schools in the last eight years, according to the article.

“‘We have a commitment to continually research and develop new technology and methods that could help to reduce the harm associated with our products,’ said Philip Morris spokesperson David Sutton.

“The New York Times reported yesterday that a Cornell University study on lung cancer received $3.6 million from Vector Group, the parent company of the tobacco company Liggett.

“Fifteen public health and medical schools have refused tobacco funding over the past few years, according to a Feb. 4 Times article. This year, the University of Texas in Austin business school banned tobacco funding, joining public health schools at Harvard University, Johns Hopkins, the University of North Carolina, Ohio State and others….”

“The burning tobacco question;
Universities face controversy over the huge sums offered by cigarette companies to research ‘reduced harm’ products;
‘The university should be a role model. Academic freedom should not override its ethical responsibilities.'” (Click on image to enlarge)

Article by David Grimm, provided by the American Association for the Advancement of Science to Financial Times
February 7, 2005

“Since the late 1990s the tobacco industry has provided university researchers with millions of dollars to develop a new class of reduced-harm products — including modified cigarettes…, tobacco lozenges and nicotine inhalation devices — ostensibly to reduce the hazards of smoking. Advocates say the industry is now serious about improving the safety of its products. But critics, who cite its efforts to manipulate science over the past 50 years, see nothing but the same old smoke and mirrors.

“Despite the efforts of anti-smoking activists, tobacco industry funding is flourishing, igniting a debate on some campuses over whether universities should ban tobacco money and whether grant organisations should deny funding to individuals or schools that take it…

“For many critics of mixing tobacco money with university research, the industry’s history speaks for itself. For example, as the link between smoking and diseases became clearer in the early 1950s, the world’s largest largest tobacco companies established the Tobacco Industry Research Committee — later the Council for Tobacco Research — to fund research into health effects of smoking. But its main goal, internal documents reveal, was to obfuscate risks and few of the studies it funded addressed the hazards of cigarettes.

“The industry also lost credibility with its previous attempts at harm reduction when it touted low-tar and filtered cigarettes as ‘safer’…

“While scientists debate the merits of taking tobacco money, other authorities may take the decision out of their hands. Over the past decade, a number of institutions — including the Harvard School of Public Health and the University of Glasgow — have banned researchers from applying for tobacco industry grants. Organizations such as Cancer Research UK and the Wellcome Trust no longer fund researchers who take tobacco money…”

ADDITIONAL RELATED ARTICLES ARE IN THE APPENDIX

“Some Campuses Decide Tobacco Company Money Is ‘Tainted'” (2 pages)

Article by Alan Finder
The New York Times
February 4, 2008

“Officials at the University of Texas business school in Austin became uneasy when they realized that a reliable donor to student activities — the parent company of the tobacco maker Philip Morris — wanted a more prominent role in sponsoring events, and more interaction with students.

“So the school decided two months ago to draw a line, and refuse all tobacco money for student groups, as well as for faculty research.

“‘What it came down to for us was the ethical dimension,’ said George W. Gau, dean of the Texas school, the McCombs School of Business. ‘The leadership of the school felt that in some sense it was tainted money, that it is mainly money gotten from a product that is significantly harming people.’

“Across academia, universities and graduate schools are wrestling with whether to accept financing from tobacco companies for research or student activities. In the past few years, 15 public health and medical schools have turned away donations from the industry; McCombs’ move was unusual because of the longstanding ties to an array of corporations.

“But on some campuses, faculty who get tobacco money for research grants have led pitched battles over proposed bans. Last spring, because of such faculty opposition, Stanford University and regents of the University of California system rejected prohibitions on tobacco dollars…”

Curator’s Note: In 2009, architectural historians Ray Bonis and Selden Richardson in Richmond, Virginia launched the Richmond history blog The Shockoe Examiner (https://shockoeexaminer.com/). Bonis’ entry on December 9, 2009 was about the logo for Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), which appeared on VCU’s signage and printed material for the better part of 30 years, after being introduced in 1969 by the newly formed VCU, a merger of the Richmond Professional Institute and the Medical College of Virginia. The abstract design sparked controversy, especially at the medical school, where some thought that it depicted a tobacco leaf.

“At One University, Tobacco Money Is Not Taboo; It’s a Secret” (2 pages)

Article by Alan Finder
The New York Times
May 22, 2008

“On campuses nationwide, professors and administrators have passionately debated whether their universities should accept money for research from tobacco companies. But not at Virginia Commonwealth University, a public institution in Richmond, Va.

“That is largely because hardly any faculty members or students there know that there is something to debate — a contract with extremely restrictive terms that the university signed in 2006 to do research for Philip Morris USA, the nation’s largest. tobacco company and a unit of Altria Group.

“The contract bars professors from publishing the results of their studies, or even talking about them, without Philip Morris’s permission. If ‘a third party,’ including news organizations, asks about the agreement, university officials have to decline to comment and tell the company, Nearly all patent and other intellectual property rights go to the company, not the university or its professors…

“Philip Morris, based in Richmond, is a likely source for Virginia Commonwealth in its hunt for dollars from a finite number of corporations. Among tobacco companies, Philip Morris is the leader in investing in academic research. And for Virginia Commonwealth, expanding ties with its neighbor could produce other benefits, like additional grants and support for other university functions…

“‘When universities sign contracts with these covenants, they are basically giving up their ethos, compromising their values as a university,’ said Sheldon Krimsky, a professor at Tufts University who is an expert on corporate influence on medical research. ‘There should be no debate about having a sponsor with control over the publishing of results.’…

“‘It’s counter to the entire purpose of a university,’ said David Rosner, a professor of public health and history at Columbia University. ‘It’s not a consulting company; it’s not just another commercial firm.'”

“VCU chief orders review of policies” (2 pages)

Article by Karin Kapsidelis
Richmond Times-Dispatch
June 30, 2008

“On the Philip Morris controversy, Trani said a task force that he appointed will hold two open town-hall meetings in July. The meetings will be held on the MCV [Medical College of Virginia] and Monroe Park campuses to discuss the university’s relationship with outside companies.

“A New York Times article in May on VCU’s research agreement with the cigarette giant called it ‘highly unusual’ and ‘extremely restrictive.’

“VCU staff members are researching data on nitrogen and phosphorus runoff into rivers and on the onset of lung disease for Philip Morris under one of a half-dozen research services agreements the university has with corporations, Francis Macrina, the school’s vice president for research, has said.

“Those agreements allow companies to review any proposed publication of research to protect patent and intellectual property rights.

“VCU’s task force will give Trani his report in October.

“He said he appointed the task force even though he believes the Times article ‘treated us unfairly.'”

“VCU President Gets Paycheck From Tobacco Company”

News article by Chris Dovi and Amy Biegelsen
Style Weekly (Richmond, Virginia)
May 28,2008

“Eugene Trani’s connection to the tobacco industry runs deep.

“The New York Times reported last week that Virginia Commonwealth University inked a controversial research deal with Philip Morris USA in 2006. The deal prohibits researchers at the public university from publishing their findings without a longer-than-usual review process from the company. Between the restricted contract and other moneys, Philip Morris gave $1.3 million to VCU last year.

“But Trani, VCU’s president, has gotten more from the tobacco industry than a million bucks. In fact, Trani is the tobacco industry.

“As a member of the board of directors of Universal Corp., Trani receives an annual retainer of $40,000, including stock options. He also receives a fee of $2,000 for each board of directors’ meeting he attends and another $1,000 for attending committee meetings.

“Based in Richmond, Universal Corp. is a leaf tobacco merchant and processor. The company’s Web site describes its operations as ‘selecting, buying, shipping, processing, packing, storing, and financing of leaf tobacco in tobacco-growing counties for sale…throughout the world.'”

“Tobacco company donates $25 million to university”

Article by The Associated Press
The Tuscaloosa News
February 11, 2007

“CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. Philip Morris USA, the nation’s No. 1 cigarette maker has donated $25 million to the University of Virginia for research on addiction and youth smoking…

“Approximately $20 million of the funding will go to the School of Medicine to support projects that seek to develop a better understanding of the causes of addiction. The remaining $5 million will supplement programs that include development of an anti-smoking marketing campaign aimed at young people.

“‘The gift supports research that may ultimately prevent or cure addictions and serious diseases, such as lung cancer, heart disease and emphysema,’ U. Va. President John T. Casteen III said in a statement Friday.

“Philip Morris CEO Mike Szymanczyk said the gift will support efforts to ‘try to solve some of the complex problems related to smoking.'”

Click on the news article to read:

“Alchemy, the safer cigarette, and Philip Morris” (4 pages)

Commentary by Alan Blum, MD

The Lancet

May 17, 2008

“The hoopla over Philip Morris’ new centre (the company has even advertised for researchers in Science) is synergistic with its backing of the bill to permit FDA regulation of tobacco products. The imprimatur of the FDA would provide much-needed credibility for research initiated by Philip Morris now that the company has been found by Federal Judge Gladys Kessler (Aug 17, 2006) to have violated civil racketeering laws over a 50-year period by deceiving the public about the dangers of smoking, by manipulating the design of cigarettes, and by suppressing research.

“Since existing brands will remain essentially untouched by the FDA bill, Marlboro, with a 41% US market share (or more than five times that of its nearest competitor), is unlikely to experience a significant sales decline. Philip Morris will thus continue to have deep pockets to promote the chimera that research will make smoking safer. To this end, the company is increasing ties to academic medical centres, such as the University of Virginia, to which it has given $25 million…”

“The University of Virginia Tobacco Research Program” (5 pages)

Press release and program description by Erik L. Hewlett, MD, Senior Associate Dean for Research,
University of Virginia School of Medicine
May 8, 2008

“In October 2007, the University of Virginia (UVA) established its Tobacco Research Program with an initial gift of $10 million from Philip Morris USA (PM) with another $10 million pledged. The university is aware that tobacco industry funding of tobacco-related research is controversial. Therefore, UVA was insistent that the terms of the agreement confirm its independence in research….

“Why Undertake Tobacco Research?

“A report of the Institute of Medicine, Ending the Tobacco Problem: Blueprint for the Nation (2007), urged governments at all levels and all public and private institutions to intensify their efforts to reduce tobacco use. In this context, UVA
wants to play a meaningful role in this overall effort to benefit public health. Under its program UVA will identify key areas of biomedical and social science research directed at preventing or treating the illnesses caused by cigarettes in
the U.S. and internationally…

“The research will focus on topics including lung cancer and other smoking related diseases and smoking cessation. Smoking-related diseases are a major public health concern in this country and throughout the world, so financial support for tobacco control, and for independent tobacco-related research, is vital…”

“Request for Applications
2003 Research Focus
Philip Morris External Research Program
Science Advisory Board Members”

Faculty members from one medical school in Germany and six medical schools in the US served on this board, including Adi F. Gazdar, MD, Professor of Pathology, University of Texas Southwest Medical Center and Mark J. Udell, MD, Professor of Medicine and Environmental Medicine, University of Rochester Medical Center.

Curator’s Note: In a response for comment on the ethics of the acceptance by universities of tobacco industry funding, Jonathan Bean, Professor of History at Southern Illinois University and a Research Fellow at the Independent Institute, an American libertarian think tank founded in 1986 and based in Oakland, California, replied as follows on March 3, 2025:

“At the risk of suggesting that ‘more research is needed,’ I’m interested in knowing which universities have received the most tobacco industry funding and which universities, if any, have banned the acceptance by faculty of tobacco industry money — and when. I find it ironic that no university seems to have balked at taking money from the annual payments by the tobacco industry to the states from the Master Settlement Agreement, an amount based on the quantity of cigarettes sold in each state during the previous year. Or is that money somehow cleaner after having been washed by the state treasurer?”

“Request for Applications
2000 Research Focus
Philip Morris External Research Program” (31 pages)

“The purpose of the Philip Morris External Research Program is to support the highest quality research that contributes to our fundamental scientific knowledge, helps address the concerns of the public health community regarding cigarette smoking, and enables Philip Morris to continue its pursuit of product modification(s) or new product design(s) that might reduce the health risk of smoking.

“…Contract payments by Philip Morris will be made quarterly to the institution where the research is being conducted…”

Curator’s Note: 105 peer reviewers are listed in the program description, representing at least 35 US universities and 14 US schools of medicine or public health. The six Science Advisory Board Members include five individuals from the US affiliated, respectively, with the University of Arizona College of Public Health, University of Cincinnati Medical Center, University of Kansas Medical Center, New York University Medical Center, University of Rochester Medical Center.

Launched in 2000, the Philip Morris External Research Program officially ended in 2007. But Philip Morris has never stopped providing research funding to universities in the United States. For instance, in the 2010s Philip Morris International (PMI) launched PMI Impact to fund research in more than 20 countries, including the US. PMI also created the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World to support research aimed at encouraging the use of non-combustible tobacco products. PMI now wants to enter medical schools by the front door as a funder of continuing medical education for physicians on the subject of “tobacco harm reduction,” based on the company’s set of alternative facts, which suggest that physicians should be urging their patients who smoke to switch from cigarettes to non-combustible tobacco products. The company’s hypothesis is that such products will reduce the incidence of lung cancer. However, there is no evidence that continued nicotine addiction would result in a reduction in cardiovascular disease.

“Journals to Refuse Tobacco-Funded Research:
After Debate on Ethics, Two Lung Association Publications Announce Unprecedented Ban”

Health news article by Rick Weiss
The Washington Post
November 21, 1995

“The new rule applies to two medical journals published by the society, the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine and the American Journal of Respiratory Cell and Molecular Biology. Both are considered eminent venues for lung researchers in the competitive world of scientific publication.

“The two journals typically publish only a few papers each year from researchers with tobacco industry funding. But the policy could have a significant impact on scientific communication if other journals follow suit. In 1994 alone, scientists with tobacco industry grants published 375 scientific papers in a wide array of journals, said James F. Glenn, chairman and president of the New York-based Council for Tobacco Research, a granting agency that funnels money from tobacco companies to scientists.

“Last year the council distributed more than $19.5 million for research, Glenn said, making it one of the top 10 private biomedical research granting agencies in the United States. Nearly 1,100 investigators at more than 3,200 medical schools, hospitals and research centers have accepted tobacco funds since the council’s inception in 1954.”

“Health Sciences Research for Harm Reduction
New Positions at Philip Morris USA

CANTBEATTHEEXPERIENCE” (2 pages)

Advertisement by Philip Morris USA
Science
April 27, 2007

“New Center for Research and Technology facility in Richmond, Virginia

The Health Sciences Research Division of PM USA is seeking Leading Scientists in several biochemical-related research areas.

The primary goal of the Health Sciences Research Division (HSR) is to conduct health science research to facilitate the development of new methods and technologies with the potential to reduce harm associated with our products…

Cigarette Smoke-Related Disease Scientists
Will participate in the development of models and biomarkers of cigarette smoke-related diseases including:
Cancer Scientists investigating cancer with emphasis on lung cancer…
COPD Scientists investigating chronic obstructive pulmonary disease…
CVD Scientists investigating cardiovascular disease.

Experimental Pathologists
Will participate in the development and use of microscopic and imaging techniques to investigate the cause of cigarette smoke-related diseases…

Philip Morris USA is an equal opportunity / affirmative action employers. We support diversity in our workforce.
Philip Morris USA is a drug-free workplace.“

Divestment of Tobacco Stocks in University Endowments and Pension Funds, Part I

In 1984, the US physicians’ activist group Doctors Ought to Care (DOC) created Project SNUFF (Stop Noxious University Funding Forever) to influence universities with medical schools to divest tobacco stocks from their endowments. The University of Illinois and a handful of other institutions agreed. Most others did not.

Other universities with prominent medical schools that divested their tobacco stacks include Johns Hopkins University (1991), Stanford University (1998), the University of Washington (2000), and the University of California (2001). In 1990, DOC member Phil Huang, MD, MPH, led a successful effort to convince Harvard University to eliminate $40 million in tobacco stocks from its endowment fund investments. As a student at the School of Public Health, Huang created a campus radio advertisement that pointed out the hypocrisy of President Derek Bok’s call for university leadership in demonstrating strong moral and civic values, while Harvard continued to invest in the tobacco industry. A news report further exposed the university’s hypocrisy of investing in tobacco companies while receiving $54 million in research grants from the National Cancer Institute.

Like the vast majority of universities, US academia’s largest retirement provider of financial services, TIAA (Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association), hasn’t sold its tobacco stocks, which are simply too lucrative. This means that thousands of physicians and other public health professionals who teach in medical schools also benefit from tobacco stock profits as members of TIAA. In 1996, at the height of the lawsuits brought by the state attorneys-general against the cigarette manufacturers and when public enmity toward the industry was growing, TIAA created a separate investment fund, the Social Choice Account, as a tobacco-free vehicle for retirement investors. But TIAA has rebuffed all calls to sell its vast tobacco stock holdings. In its 2017 annual report, TIAA listed investments totaling more than $450 million in Philip Morris International, maker of Marlboro, the world’s best-selling cigarette, and its counterpart Altria, which controls over 50% of the US cigarette market. TIAA is thus one of the biggest investors in Big Tobacco. Nor has TIAA stood with the Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility in its shareholder resolutions aimed at curbing the tobacco industry’s aggressive expansion into Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe.

“Colleges Must Eliminate Tobacco Stocks From Their Portfolios” (Click on image to enlarge)

Point of View by Alan Blum
The Chronicle of Higher Education
October 17, 1990

“In 1981, a group of young physicians that I coordinated finally succeeded in persuading the American Medical Association to eliminate several million dollars’ worth of tobacco stocks from its retirement fund. In 1984, we focused on university-based medical schools in Illinois. The resulting publicity led a few institutions, such as the University of Illinois, to sell their tobacco stock, but others, such as Loyola, refused to do so.

“Until this past June, when Harvard University and the City University of New York (CUNY) separately announced that they would divest millions of dollars in tobacco-stock holdings, little more was said or done in the academic community about the ethics of profiting from the sale of tobacco. Harvard acted after a local newspaper reported out the hypocrisy of the university’s investing in tobacco companies while collecting $54 million in research grants from the National Cancer Institute in 1988, and after a group of physicians at its School of Public Health purchased time on the campus radio station to urge President Derek Bok to press for the divestiture. At CUNY, a member of the Board of Trustees, Edith Everett, raised the issue at a board meeting, saying, ‘Owning a stock makes one a partner in that company. Ownership in a company whose purpose is to addict as many young people as possible to a lethal drug calls educational leadership into question.’ At the next meeting, the board concurred, in a 9-2 vote…

“The issue of tobacco companies’ support of university-based research may be an even hotter potato — but ultimately more meaningful — than divestment, because a refusal to accept such support would emphasize not only the immorality of profiting from tobacco sales, but also the intellectual dishonesty of the tobacco industry in its purposeful misuse and distortion of research. Little has been written about the possible ethical compromise for universities in accepting research money from the tobacco industry, which may then misuse the results…

“For a university in 1990 to continue to hold a stake in a tobacco company shows contempt for the very knowledge that has been gained by university researchers about tobacco during the past 50 years…”

“Point/Counterpoint:
Should universities and medical schools sell their tobacco stocks?”

Physician’s Weekly
August 10, 1987

“YES

“DOC’s Project SNUFF (Stop Noxious University Funding Forever) prods medical schools and their universities to swear off tobacco investments.

“The schools should set an example, as some have by ending investments in firms that deal with South Africa…

“Researchers have found that many American universities and health-related institutions own tobacco stocks. Even the AMA had them in its portfolio until 1981, when the residents’ section…spotted this fact. Within a few months, AMA divested.

“Now…the AMA’s House of Delegates has adopted a report calling on medical schools to sell their tobacco shares…

“It’s said that Harvard wasn’t prompted by a moral imperative when it sold $5 million in tobacco stocks. Its reason was fear that liability suits threatened its investment.

“Justifying stock ownership because many companies are diversified misses the point. Subsidiaries are used to camouflage the real business: making the only consumer product that’s lethal in intended doses…”

— Dr. Alan Blum, Founder and chairman, DOC (Doctors Ought to Care), family physician, Houston

“NO

“I voted against the AMA report urging medical schools and universities to sell their tobacco stocks because I believe they shouldn’t be required to divest. As long as tobacco is a legitimate business in the United States, schools, like others, should be free to invest in it.

“If curtailment of their fiscal judgment is to be accepted policy, then we all must be prepared to live with possible results of fiscal restriction, such as reduced salaries.

“…Physicians shouldn’t expect schools to divest themselves of tobacco stocks unless we’re ready to give up investments that may seem to involve conflicts of interest, such as drug or biogenetic firms.

“…[T]o expect medical schools and universities to divest themselves of tobacco stocks or any other legal and financially sound investment is tantamount to saying that educating students is not their primary objective.”

— Dr. George Lim, Member AMA House o Delegates, orthopedic surgeon, Rome, New York

“Harvard mulls tobacco divestment because of sales in Third World”

Article by John Yoo
The Boston Globe
October 9, 1988

“…News of the university’s attention to the issue, first reported by the Harvard Crimson, the student newspaper, has placed some critics of the school In a difficult position. While they join in opposing the aggressive marketing of cigarettes in the Third World, they regard it as far more important to sever the university’s financial ties to South Africa — investments they say total $200 million.

“‘It’s just so blatantly hypocritical,’ said senior Mitchell A. Orenstein, a campus activist. ‘It demonstrates a value system here that shows that selling cigarettes in the Third World is more important than apartheid in South Africa.’ Other activists characterize the move as an attempt to undermine the South African Divestment Movement, which has been active at Harvard for the past decade.

“‘It’s a smokescreen to divert attention from the real divestment issue,’ said senior Michael J. Bonin, a member of the student run Southern African Solidarity Committee.”

“Tobacco Divestment Weighed”

Article by Emily H. Bernstein
The Harvard Crimson
September 28, 1988

“In a precedent-setting move, Harvard is considering divesting its stock holdings in two major U.S. tobacco companies.

“The University wrote to both RJR-Nabisco and Philip Morrisa in July asking them to respond to charges that promotional techniques in Latin American, African and Asian nations are often heavy-handed. Harvard also asked the companies to explain why they do not place warning labels on cigarette packs, as is required in this country.

“The Corporation Committee on Shareholder Responsibility (CCSR), which formulates Harvard’s investment policy, sent the letters after the issue was raised by an advisory panel last spring. So far, the committee has received no response form the two multinational corporations.

“Some members of our committee…believe that Harvard, which refuses to own stock in some companies because it does not wish to be associated with particular economic activities (gambling, prostitution), should seriously consider placing the production and sale of cigarettes in that category,’ according to an internal memo written by the Advisory Committee on shareholder responsibility (ACSR). The ACSR is a panel of faculty, students and administrators which advises the Corporation on ethical investing.

“Experts across the country said this week that if Harvard were to decide to divest from tobacco companies it would be the first institution in the country to do so.

“This latest move toward divestment comes after a decade of pressure on the University to divest of stock from companies doing business in South Africa, which led to a policy of selective divestment. Harvard in 1986 divested about $152 million in South Africa-related stocks — about a third of its holdings at the time…

“The drive to divest from tobacco companies sems likely to rekindle the debate about the benefits of divestment. Harvard and other critics of divestment have argued that, in most cases, a better alternative is constructive engagement, by which the University maintains its stock to put pressure on companies…

“The ACSR raised the possibility of divestment after a shareholder-sponsored resolution this spring called for the two companies to report on their advertising and promotion campaigns in developing nations. The proxy fight, which was sponsored by an activist Jesuit order in Milwaukee, was not targeted against the companies’ domestic business…

“Michael Crosby, executive director of the Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility, which sponsored the recent shareholder resolution, said that his organization bought 10 shares several years ago in order to force a dialogue with the companies through shareholder resolutions and annual meetings.”

“Harvard and CUNY Shedding Stocks in Tobacco” (2 pages)

Article by Tamar Lewin
The New York Times
May 24, 1990

“Harvard University and the City University of New York have decided to eliminate stocks of tobacco companies from their investment portfolios, in what may be harbingers of a new tactic to highlight the dangers of smoking.

“The action by Harvard was disclosed by President Derek Bok in a letter dated May 18 to three students at the university’s public health school…

“Harold Jacobs, a trustee at City University, said, ‘…our vice chairman, Edith Everett, argued very persuasively that cigarettes are unhealthy and we should not hold tobacco stock, so we passed it.’

“Ms. Everett and her husband, Henry, and they serve on the board of trustees of the Tobacco Divestment Project, a Boston-based non-profit group…

“…Harvard’s decision to make its divestiture public may be attributable in part to a campaign by Dr. Philip Huang, a 29-year-old student at the Harvard public health school who has been affiliated since his medical school days with Doctors Ought to Care (DOC), a national anti-smoking group,,,”

Paid radio advertisement played on WHRB, Harvard University’s student-run commercial radio station, to urge Harvard president Derek Bok to support divestment of tobacco stocks held by the university. MPH student Philip Huang assisted media guru, political advisor, and sound archivist Tony Schwartz (1923-2008) in creating the advertisement, recorded by veteran announcer Bob Landers. (01:00)

“DOC Efforts Spark Major Universities to Divest Tobacco Holdings” (2 pages)

Article in DOC News and Views, The Journal of Medical Activism
Summer 1991

“Tobacco Divestment Milestones

1981: American Medical Association eliminated several million dollars worth of tobacco stocks from its retirement fund.

1984: Project SNUFF (Stop Noxious University Funding Forever), created by DOC, succeeded in convincing University of Illinois to divest its tobacco stocks.

1990: Tobacco Divestment Project (TDP) formally launched as a national campaign. Harvard divested of almost $60 million worth of tobacco holdings. The Board of Trustees of City University of New York voted to divest its $3.5 million of Philip Morris stock. The City of Pittsburgh and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation divested their tobacco holdings. Resolutions calling for tobacco divestment were introduced in Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Oregon and Pennsylvania. American Public Health Association adopted a policy statement calling for tobacco divestment. Divestment efforts underway in California, spearheaded by Dr. Kenneth Kizer, director of the California Health Department.

1991: Johns Hopkins University announced divestment of its tobacco holdings after Board of Trustees voted unanimously in favor of such action. The Texas State Board of Health, Texas Medical Association and Texas Governor Ann Richards publicly spoke out in favor of tobacco divestment. Divestment efforts underway at Rice University.”

Divestment of Tobacco Stocks in University Endowments and Pension Funds, Part II: TEXAS 2025

On November 21, 2024, Texas Governor Greg Abbott directed Texas state agencies to divest from risky investments in China (https://gov.texas.gov/news/post/governor-abbott-directs-state-agencies-to-divest-portfolios-from-china). As a result, the University of Texas System (UTS) called a special Board of Regents meeting on December 11 to change the investment policy to reflect this divestment order (https://www.utsystem.edu/board-of-regents/meetings/board-meeting-2024-12-11).The University of Texas Investment Management Company (UTIMCO) oversees investments for UTS and the Texas A&M System. UTIMCO manages endowment funds and operating funds totaling nearly $80 billion in assets, making it one of the largest managed funds in all of higher education.

For decades, the System, which includes 3 NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers (including world-renowned MD Anderson Cancer Center), 7 medical schools, and 10 nursing schools, has benefited for many decades from UTIMCO’s investments in major tobacco companies, including Phillip Morris USA, Phillip Morris International (PMI), Altria Group, Reynolds American (RJ Reynolds, RJR Nabisco), British American Tobacco, Imperial Tobacco Group… and the state-owned China National Tobacco Corporation (CNTC or China Tobacco), which is traded under China Tobacco International Hong Kong Company. A recent UTIMCO Permanent University Fund annual report, dated August 31, 2023, shows holdings of $15,716,828 in PMI and $2,236,337 in Altria Group. The latter company manufactures Marlboro for the US market, while PMI sells Marlboro in over 160 countries. Since 1994, China Tobacco has had an agreement with PMI to sell Marlboro and other PMI brands in China (and has similar agreements with British American Tobacco and Japan Tobacco). UTIMCO’s investment in tobacco stocks is among the top 20 types of stock holdings.

As a result of Governor Abbott’s directive, one might assume that there will be no further investment by UTIMCO in China Tobacco. But by virtue of the business agreement between PMI and China Tobacco, would it not also be logical for UTIMCO to divest its shares of PMI? The larger question, of course, is why a university system with the responsibility for the lion’s share of the provision of health care in Texas continues to invest in tobacco companies fully 60 years after the indictment of cigarette smoking by the Surgeon General as the major avoidable cause of lung cancer.

Nor is this the first time that the investment in tobacco by UTS has been brought to the attention of the Board of Regents. In 1991, UT-Austin student Ron Turk, founder of Students Against Tobacco Investments, addressed the Board of Regents at its June meeting. He noted that tobacco is a health-related issue that is not controversial. Because of its leadership in medical education and public health, he added, the U.T. System has an obligation to address the nation’s leading preventable cause of death and disease. Turk listed proponents of tobacco stock divestment, including then-Governor Ann Richards, the Texas Medical Association, the State Board of Health, and former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, who noted the irony of M.D. Anderson Cancer Center’s treatment of 10,000 patients each year while its UT System parent held $50 million in tobacco stock. As a result of Ron Turk’s presentation, the Board of Regents voted on whether to end investment in tobacco. The vote was 4 in favor and 4 against, thus defeating the proposal. In an attempt at saving face, the Board announced that all University of Texas facilities would be smoke-free.

Considering the UT System’s ongoing holdings in major tobacco companies, UTIMCO might more accurately stand for University Tobacco Investment Management Company. The known public health risks of tobacco ought to be at least as important to the UT System as the purported security risk of investing in Chinese companies is to Governor Abbott.

“Students form group to urge tobacco divestment:
‘We want to shatter the image of tobacco industries as being respectable businesses.’
–Ron Turk,
UT government senior”

Article by Jenny Huang
The Daily Texan
July 2, 1990

“UT students are joining a nationwide effort by anti-smoking groups to urge divestment in tobacco companies and to refuse their charitable gifts, protest organizers said Friday…

“The University owns about 370,000 shares of Philip Morris alone worth $16.3 million, as well as some smaller holdings in other tobacco companies.

“A group to be called Students Against Tobacco Investments will be formed at the University during the second summer session to call for UT divestment.

“Founder Ron Turk, a government senior, said the group’s fundamental purpose…will ‘promote the belief that it is immoral to profit from tobacco addiction.’

“…Henry Davis, UT executive director of investments, said the University has not taken a stand on tobacco divestment, but Philip Morris has been an attractive stock for the University…”

“UT regents ponder selling tobacco stock” (2 pages)

Article by Jay Root
The Houston Post
May 6, 1991

“The University of Texas System will consider dumping its $43 million worth of tobacco stock when the board of regents meets in June.

“Newly appointed regent Bernard Rapoport said he would introduce a resolution. calling for divestment of the holdings, the value of which places UT among the top five U.S. universities owning tobacco stock.

“Four of the nine regents, including Rapoport, have said they would vote to divest, and one other has said it’s ‘probably a good idea.’

“None of the regents contacted has voiced opposition.

“UT would be the first Texas university to dump its tobacco-related investments…

“Students, along with alumni, faculty members and public officials, have pressured UT regents to dump the stock.

“The board, however, has consistently maintained that it would not use economic power to ‘advance social or political causes.’ The board has never told the investment managers to divest anything, according to UT officials.

“‘I felt like the students were really right in that request,’ Rapoport said, referring to the UT students who have called upon the regents to divest. ‘I think we’ll instruct the board to sell the tobacco stocks,’ he added. ‘You get an intuitive feeling about these things.’…

“‘As of September, we only had one person openly stating he would desire divestiture. It now seems like several board members· are considering divestiture,’ said Ron Turk, who has led the opposition through the group he founded, Students Against Tobacco Investment….”

“Rice alumni ask school to snuff tobacco holdings” (2 pages)

Article by Steve Olafson
The Houston Post
September 6, 1990

“Rice University is being asked to divest millions of dollars of tobacco stock from its investment portfolio by a group of alumni who say it is socially irresponsible for the university to invest in a product that kills an estimated 390,000 Americans each year…

“Rice officials refused to say how much tobacco stock the school owns, but according to the last quarterly report the university filed in compliance with Security and Exchange Commission rules, it owned 739,000 shares of Philip Morris stock. At its closing price Wednesday of 45 1/4, that much Philip Morris stock would be worth $33.4 million.”

Paid radio advertisement played on KTRU, Rice University’s student-run radio station, to urge Rice president George Rupp to support divestment of tobacco stocks held by the university. Alumnus Philip Huang, MD, MPH, assisted media guru, political advisor, and sound archivist Tony Schwartz (1923-2008) in creating the advertisement, recorded by veteran announcer Bob Landers, and co-spoored by DOC (Doctors Ought to Care). (01:00)

“Alumni demand Rice sell off ‘unethical’ stock” (2 pages)

Article by Shelley Fuld
The Rice Thresher
September 14, 1990

“Philip Huang, a 1982 Rice graduate who now works for the Illinois Department of Public Health and the Centers for Disease Control, was a leader in the movement last spring that prompted Harvard University to divest its stock in Philip Morris and U.S. Tobacco.

“…Bala Dharan, professor of accounting…said both the cash flows and the stability of the tobacco and food markets make Philip Morris a financially sound investment. ‘Both cigarettes and food are very stable, so they don’t have to worry about recession. It’s an incredibly powerful company in that sense, and its return is hard to beat. Everyone, even people who are absolutely morally and ethically against smoking may end up buying stock like that because it’s unbeatable,’ Dharan said.

“Despite its other holdings, tobacco sales account for over half of the company’s operating revenue, according to Philip Morris’ Annual Report for the 1988 fiscal year. The income for Philip Morris’ international tobacco market was up 33 percent in 1988 over the previous year.

“A main criticism of the tobacco industry is the extent to which it markets its products in Third World countries. ‘A big part of Philip Morris’ profits come from sales to Third World counties. But in the Third World, there are no dissenters in advertising like in this country, no banning advertising on TV,’ sociology professor Stephen Klineberg said.

“Huang said, ‘It’s hypocritical for an institution of higher learning to support such an industry. As an alumnus and contributor, I certainly don’t want my contributions going toward the marketing of tobacco products to Third World countries or advertising a product that is the number one preventable cause of death in this country.'”

“To divest, or not to divest”

Article in The Rice Thresher
May 10, 1991

“A group of 60 Rice alumni spent $550 on radio time … To air a 60 second spot criticizing university policy as socially irresponsible for holding tobacco stock. The spot aired during the same time as Rice commencement.

“According to Eric Solberg, a member of the national advocacy group working with the alumni. ‘We’ve done this to point out the hypocritical message of the president [George Rupp]’…

“Part of the message replays Rupp’s 1990 commencement address, quoting ‘commit yourself to causes larger than your own gratification.’ The ad accuses Rice of ‘selling out for the right price’ by not divesting. According to the alumni group, Rice holds the highest level of tobacco investment of any university in the country…”

Curator’s Note: The Bottom Line — Putting Tobacco Divestment by Universities and the Ethics of the Acceptance by Universities of Research Funding into Perspective in 2025

The number of colleges and universities that have divested tobacco stock holdings and/or have adopted policies barring investment in tobacco stocks is unknown, according to Aaron Van Neste, Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at Oberlin College. He and Professor Naomi Oreskes in the Department of the History of Science at Harvard University are compiling a list of institutions of higher learning that have committed to tobacco divestment as well as to barring research funding from the tobacco industry. In response to questions posed by the Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society on March 18, 2025, Dr. Van Neste estimated that fewer than 30 schools have policies against tobacco investment and that no more than 28 schools have policies against the acceptance of tobacco industry money for research.

“RICE ALUMNI FOR TOBACCO DIVESTMENT” (8 pages)

“I was extremely disappointed by the September 14th Thresher staff editorial entitled, ‘Don’t Sell Philip Morris Stock’ as well as by [other similar] editorials…in subsequent issues…The editorials claim that if Rice divests from Philip Morris, the administration and Board of Governors will be ‘abandoning their financial responsibility to the university.’ Their arguments are based on the incorrect assumption that tobacco stocks are an indispensable part of a successful investment portfolio. They also seem to advocate the disturbing viewpoint that profit is the only factor that counts in decision making…

“As a family physician and as a public health officer, I have unfortunately witnessed the true tragedies of smoking. We hear the numbers all the time, but it is hard to really comprehend the magnitude of the problem. Smoking kills more than 370,000 Americans every year…Smoking kills more people than AIDS, crack, heroin, cocaine, alcohol, car accidents, fire and murder — combined. It is the number one cause of preventable death and disease in this country.

“The Thresher editorials totally ignore the important moral and ethical questions which underlie tobacco divestment…

“My Rice diploma states that Rice is ‘dedicated to the advancement of liberal and technical learning and the progress of mankind’…Demonstration and teaching of ethical values is not beyond the scope of a Rice Education. Rice should divest of its tobacco stocks now and join Harvard and other institutions who are addressing this issue. It is the morally correct and intelligent thing to do.”

Letter by Philip Huang, MD, MPH, Rice ’82, to The Rice Thresher
October 22, 1990
(3 pages)

“Dr. George E. Rupp
President, Rice University

Dear Dr. Rupp,

…In your inaugural address in 1985, you placed a high priority on continuing to provide an outstanding education to Rice students, regardless of their ability to pay. As a recent graduate of Rice and medical school, I appreciate the relatively low cost and very high quality education that Rice provides. It is not my intention to jeopardize the financial status of Rice or Rice students…

“In spite of diversification by Philip Morris, over 60% of their profits still come from tobacco sales. At this time, a Philip Morris investment is undeniably an investment in tobacco.

“The success of such an investment has sobering implications. The very students we most need to support are also most susceptible to tobacco’s impact: a parent smoking one pack a day for 20 years has smoked a four year tuition; a child smoking for 10 years has lost $7,000 or more; a child whose parent dies prematurely may never make it to Rice. The ‘return on investment’ in a Rice student who smokes is also cut short statistically, by premature death. Tobacco is no friend of Rice or our students…”

Letter (one of three) by Walton Sumner II, MD, Rice ’81, to Rice University president George E. Rupp
July 13, 1990
(4 pages)

“COLLEGE RETIREMENT EQUITIES FUND
2008 Annual Report/Financial Statement
TIAA CREF
FINANCIAL SERVICES FOR THE GREATER GOOD” (2 pages)

TIAA-CREF stands for Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America-College Retirement Equities Fund.
TIAA is the company name, and CREF is a variable annuity product that TIAA offers. In 2016, TIAA-CREF changed its name to TIAA.

On December 31, 2008 TIAA CREF’s Growth Account held $167,948,000 in shares of Altria Group, Inc. and Philip Morris Intenational, Inc. (makers of Marlboro and other cigarettes), representing 2.04% of the account’s assets.

“Continued progress”

Advertisement by British American Tobacco Co.
Financial Times

October 31, 2001

“YOU HATE THEM IN RESTAURANTS.
YOU DON’T ALLOW THEM IN YOUR CAR.
YOU’D DIE IF YOU FOUND THEM IN YOUR CHILFD’S BEDROOM.
DO YOU REALLY NEED THEM IN YOUR MUTUAL FUNDS?”

Magazine advertisement by Calvert Group
1998

“There’s a good chance you have tobacco in your mutual funds without even knowing it. In fact, a recent study shows that 10 of the 15 largest mutual funds list tobacco in their primary holdings. At Calvert, we can help you meet your financial goals without relying on the tobacco industry. For 15 years, we’ve given investors tobacco-free choices in their mutual funds and retirement plans…”

“A Review of Divestment by Medical Organizations and Academic Institutions of Shareholdings in Tobacco Companies” (4 pages)

Article by Alan Blum and Richard Daynard
Tobacco Divestment Project
Northeastern University School of Law
In Tobacco and Health
(Compilation of articles adapted from presentations at the 9th World Conference on Tobacco and Health, 10-14 October, 1994)
New York: Plenum Press, 1995

“Over the past twenty years, various individuals and organizations, most notably in the health professions, have aired concerns about the ethics of profiting from investments in tobacco. The accepted definition of social investing is the integration of financial and social criteria when making investment decisions. The premise is that investing is not ‘value neutral,’ meaning that ethical and social criteria should be considered in how we use our money and profit from an investment. Proponents of social investing believe that one can feel good about the nature of an investment and derive profit at the same time.

“The concept of socially responsible investing became current in the 1970s when various religious organizations began telling their investment brokers not to put their money into alcohol, gambling, or tobacco stocks. The actual theory dates to the mid-19th century when various American religious orders refused to invest in these so-called sin stocks. The resurgence in this kind of moral investment in the 1970s also included manufacturers of nuclear weapons, companies involved in the manufacture or use of nuclear power plants, and firms doing business in the Republic of South Africa…

“The field of tobacco divestment began in 1978 when members of the Resident Physician Section of the American Medical Association sent a confidential memorandum to the executive director of the AMA pointing to the hypocrisy of the AMA’s holding of millions of dollars in tobacco stocks in its members’ retirement fund. The note was dismissed with the argument that the companies were diversifying into non-tobacco products and that the AMA couldn’t prevent its investment division from its responsibility to seek the highest possible return. By 1981, when the residents’ proposal to divest the stocks had reached the AMA’s House of Delegates in the form of a resolution, the AMA voted to retain the stocks. Widespread adverse publicity surrounding the decision led the AMA to sell the stocks shortly thereafter, and since then the organization has been very supportive of tobacco divestment. In 1986 the AMA wrote to every medical school in the US calling for a purge of tobacco stocks from university portfolios…

“Around this time, all US efforts on tobacco divestment were combined into an organization called the Tobacco Divestment Project, with the aim of coordinating efforts to end tobacco investments by universities and pension funds…

“The Tobacco Divestment Project is currently redefining its objectives. The increase in product liability litigation against the tobacco industry raises the possibility that successful lawsuits could result in the bankruptcy of some tobacco companies, as was the case with asbestos litigation. The investors are faced with the prospect that tobacco stocks may become a financial risk. The dilemma for the Divestment Project is whether to publicize the potential legal and financial drawbacks of owning tobacco stocks or to remain committed solely to the moral argument on which it was founded.”

What’s in a Name? Naming Opportunities at Medical Schools for Tobacco Company Executives

Several universities in the U.S. have scholarships, professorships, hospitals, and even medical schools that have been endowed by and named in honor of tobacco industry figures. Duke University has at least 27 professorships endowed by the Duke Foundation (established by tobacco magnate James B. Duke), including one in radiation oncology, as well as an RJ Reynolds Professorship of Medicine and Philip Morris Minority Scholarships. The Bowman Gray Campus on which Wake Forest School of Medicine is located is named for a past president of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. New York University’s Tisch Hospital is named for the late controlling owner of Lorillard Tobacco, since absorbed into Reynolds American, U.S. arm of British American Tobacco (BAT). The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania has an endowed professorship of social responsibility named for a former head of the National Association of Tobacco Distributors. (In 2014 the university’s board voted not to divest tobacco stocks.) Virginia Commonwealth University has a Philip Morris Endowed Chair in International Business. Syracuse University has an endowed chair in business and government policy named for a past president of United States Tobacco Company, which popularized smokeless tobacco. In the U.K., Cambridge University has an endowed chair named for a former chairman of the board of BAT.

Lobby of NYU’s Tisch Hospital

Photograph from the Tisch Hospital website
https://nyulangone.org/locations/tisch-hospital

“Tisch Family Gives $30 Million to N.Y.U.” (2 pages)

Article by Kathleen Teltsch
The New York Times
January 25, 1989

“Laurence A. Tisch and Preston Robert Tisch and their families have given $30 million to New York University and its Medical Center. In gratitude, the university said it was changing the name of the 26-year-old University Hospital on First Avenue to Tisch Hospital.

“The Tisch family has contributed more than $45 million over the years to New York University, which already has a Tisch School of the Arts at the Washington Square campus and a Tisch Hall at the College of Business and Administration, named for the late patriarch, Al, who taught his sons to be generous to their community, the brothers frequently say…

“…The latest Tisch gift will be used mainly for biomolecular medical research, or more precisely, to improve salaries to the university can compete for top scientific and research talent that has tended to move to California and Texas, said Dr. Saul J. Farber, dean of the N.Y.U. School of Medicine.”

“Son of Loews Chairman
Advances at Lorillard”

Article in The New York Times
August 25, 1989

“Andrew H. Tisch climbed another step in the family business yesterday, becoming chairman and chief executive of Lorillard Inc., the tobacco company owned by the Loews Corporation. Mr. Tisch, 40, is the son of Laurence A. Tisch, the chairman of Loews, and the nephew of its president, Preston R. Tisch.

“…Mr. Tisch said his priority at Lorillard would be “to increase our share of the worldwide market.’ Lorillard, which manufactures Kent, Newport and True cigarettes, has maintained its share of the cigarette market at 8.2 percent since 1987, but its sales volume slipped 1.9 percent in 1988 from 1987.

“Noting that overall tobacco sales declined 2.1 percent in the same period, Mr. Tisch said Lorillard was in a fairly strong position. Lorillard is the fourth-largest American cigarette manufacturer, after Philip Morris, RJR Nabisco and Brown & Williamson.

“Mr. Tisch said he would not follow the examples of some larger competitors, which have diversified into other businesses, partly as a wedge against declining cigarette sales.

“‘Lorillard, over the years, has spent more of its effort and concentration on the cigarette business,’ he said. ‘We’ll continue to do that.'”

“Topic of cancer: Tisch & CBS”

Column by Jimmy Breslin
Daily News (New York)
March 8, 1987

“[L]ast year the CBS television network had a thorough fright. A man named Turner in Atlanta, whose business was putting news on television all day, tried to take over CBS in a stock maneuver. Immediately, CBS threw up breastworks. The defense consisted of expensive stupidity. At the end, here came a man to save everybody, Larry Tisch. He owned 34% of CBS and he took over.

“…Larry Tisch owns the Loews Corporation, and something like 50 percent of Loews’ profits comes from a company called Lorillard, which makes cancer. One of the Lorillard brands is True Blue. The last time I went to Memorial Sloan-Kettering in Manhattan was to visit a person who smoked True Blue. The funeral was held at Schwartz Brothers on Queens Blvd.

“CBS is not allowed to take commercials from Lorillard because the product gives people cancer.

“But the man who owns the company that sells cancer is allowed to own CBS…

“When Larry Tisch arrived at CBS, these most brilliant newsmen were all wildly excited. They were safe.

“…But…yesterday…Tisch…fired 215 news workers at CBS, closing a couple of their bureaus around the world…

“If a man, for private profit, tears at the public news, does so with the impatience of one who actually owns the news you get, it is against the national interest…Which happens to harm the country. Tisch’s only credential is that he has money, I am sorry to say, and he should be ashamed to admit, comes from selling a product that gives cancer.”

“The Tisch (?) Hospital” (3 pages plus two 1-page documents)

Press release by William G. Cahan, MD [1914-2001]
Attending surgeon
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
New York City
March 1989

Also published as “Tisch brothers’ donation clouded by smoke”
Letter to the editor by William G. Cahan, MD
Attending surgeon
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
New York City
Washington Square News
March 27, 1989

“COME TO THE HOSPITAL
THAT CIGARETTES BUILT”
Satirical flyer created by William G. Cahan, MD
March 1989

“To the dismay of some of New York University’s admirers, it is about to rename University Hospital after two executives who have long been closely associated with a tobacco company. In the news release announcing Laurence and Preston Tisch’s sizeable gift, one of several they have given to NYU, it stated that their income is largely derived from Loews Corporation of which Preston is President, and Laurence (who is also President of CBS), is Chairman. Both brothers are also members of NYU’s Board of Trustees.

“What the release does not mention is that, besides Loews Corporation’s interest in real estate, insurance, hotels, etc., it owns 100% of P. Lorillard and Company, makers of Kent, Old Gold, Newport, Satin, and True cigarettes.

“It is unfortunate, from my point of view, that it is still legal for tobacco companies to market their products. But, although it is within the law to do so, it’s just inappropriate for a distinguished university to show its gratitude, however great it may be, to benefactors who are in that business by naming their equally distinguished health facility after them…”

“THE TISCH HOSPITAL LETTERS”

Correspondence between William G. Cahan, MD, and John Brademas, president of New York University
Seven Days
July 12, 1989

“February 1, 1989
Dear John:

About a year ago, as you and I walked through the Museum of Modern Art, I asked your opinion about the ethics of educational and cultural institutions accepting funds from tobacco interests, when it is clear that such funds were given for their PR effect: to launder the tobacco company’s nicotine-stained image.

“You…agreed it was, indeed, an enigma. You pointed out how difficult it is for cash-poor institutions to resist readily available tobacco monies…I felt that this was scant justification for institutions doing so as, I am sure, they are well aware that hundreds of thousands of people have been, and are being, maimed an killed each year by tobacco products.

“Now…not only has NYU accepted a major donation from executives of a tobacco company, it is also about to name its hospital after them.

“Surely, such an action raises questions as to the propriety of accepting funds from individuals…whose wealth was, and is being, amassed at the expense of our country’s health. My guess is that at least one out of six adult patients at University Hospital…are there because they smoked. Are the hospital staff…aware that Lowes Corporation (the Tisch brothers’ main holding) owns P. Lorillard and Company who make Kent, Old Gold, Newport, Satin and True cigarettes?”

“February 12, 1989

Dear Bill:

“…As you have been candid in voicing your opinion, you will, I am sure, want me to be equally candid in reply. Aware of your concern, I agree with neither your analysis nor your conclusion.

“We at New York University are deeply grateful to the Tisch family for their extraordinary gift…and we are proud to have the name of Tisch on our hospital.

“It would obviously be wrong for the university knowingly to accept funds that were the result of unlawful activities. This is not, of course, true of the instant case. Nor is your representation accurate that this gift is from ‘tobacco interests.’ Loews Corporation — and I am a director — is also an insurance, watch, hotel and shipping business; and Laurence A. Tisch, as you know, is president and chief executive officer of CBS.

“You are also wrong in your assertion that ‘such funds were given for their PR effect: to launder the tobacco company’s nicotine-stained image.’

“‘Having for several years dealt with both Larry and Bob Tisch, I can flatly assure you that at no time have I heard a word from either to justify your allegation that that their contributions ‘were given…to launder the tobacco company’s nicotine-stained image.'”

“Brademas Leads Review Committee For Grants to Fight Drug Abuse”

Article in NYU Today
1990

“NEW YORK University President John Brademas will chair a group of 11 national experts reviewing community grant proposals for a total of $26.4 million given by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to reduce demand for illegal drugs and alcohol.

“The $26.4 million for a new nationwide ‘Fighting Back’ program is the largest single commitment of private funds to the problem of substance abuse, according to officials of the Foundation, the nation’s largest health care philanthropy…

“‘We who lead the nation’s colleges and universities feel a special obligation to the students who attend them,’ Brademas added. ‘Moreover, for universities like NYU, located in the heart of a major urban center, we feel added responsibility to lead our resources to help meet the problems that affect the communities in which we are located.’

“…According to the foundation, one in eight Americans past the age of 11 used an illegal drug at least once in the last month; some 18 million Americans, or one out of every 10 adults, have symptoms of alcohol dependency or significant problem’s associated with alcohol; about half of all U.S. motor vehicle fatalities are alcohol-related and society’s annual costs for drug and alcohol abuse are expected to reach $229 billion in 1990…”

“Celebrating the Life of A Courageous American
William G. Cahan, M.D.
August 2, 1914 – October 7, 2001

We’ll miss you, Doctor Cahan. Your work will go on.”

Advertisement by the NYC Coalition For a Smoke-Free City
The New York Times
November 11, 2001

“For more than 50 years. Dr. Cahan was a lung cancer surgeon at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Through his work, he had first hand knowledge of the grip of nicotine addiction, the suffering caused by lung cancer and the inevitable consequence of its use.

“Dr. Cahan’s compassion for his patients was bountiful, and his outrage at the damage caused by tobacco use was endless.

“He worked locally and nationally to pass laws to reduce smoking, at a time when only the most fearless tobacco control advocates had the courage to confront the tobacco industry.”

“‘Education is not the filling of the pail,
But the lighting of the fire’
— W.B. Yeats” (2 pages)

Advertisement by Loews Corporation, parent company of Lorillard, maker of Newport and Kent cigarettes
BUSINESS TODAY
Published at Princeton University “by students for students”
Distributed at campus career fairs
Spring 2006

“Philip Morris Distinguished Professor in
Business and Society at Baruch College”

Advertisement by Baruch College of The City of New York
The New York Times
March 23, 1986

“Baruch College of the City of New York invites nominations and applications for the position of Philip Morris Distinguished Visiting Professor in Business and Society for spring semester during the 1986/1987 academic year.

“The Distinguished Visiting Professor is supported by an endowment from Philip Morris Companies, in honor of George Weissman, Baruch College 1939, LLD 1982, former chief executive officer and chairman of the executive committee of Philip Morris. The Distinguished Professor will conduct a special seminar for business and liberal arts students, deliver a public lecture inaugurating the residency, and be available for classes and counsel to other faculty and students. The term of appointment is one semester…

“Candidates should present a record of outstanding scholarship or accomplishment in areas concerning the relationship between business and society, and a demonstrated capacity to integrate business disciplines with social, philosophical, political, scientific, or artistic disciplines…”

Letter to The New York Times by Abraham J. Briloff, distinguished professor at Baruch College
November 26, 1990

“At a recent meeting of the Trustees of the Baruch College Fund, we were informed that the Philip Morris Company had determined not to renew its $9,500 contribution towards two student-writing projects; this was, we were told, in retaliation for the City University’s determination to divest itself of holdings of securities of companies in the tobacco industry.

“At the outset, it is sad indeed that a corporation whose revenues are measured in tens of billions of dollars, and its income in the billions, should find it necessary to have someone in a decision-making position reach down to ferret out a measley [sic] $9,500 sum and then to use that information to boycott the students who would benefit therefrom. Apparently, for Philip Morris the ‘thousand points of light’ are constrained to be at the ends of cigarettes.

“But the company is especially blind-sighted in manifesting its pique against the Baruch College. George Weissman, the company’s distinguished chairman emeritus, the one principally responsible for Philip Morris’ exponential growth over the past two-score years, received his tuition-free education in business at this college. Further, his alma mater honored him by the award of an honorary doctorate degree. Surely, the $9,500 would represent a mere pittance of the debt which the company owes to the college; thus, the $9,500 is not a gift given ex gratia.

“In view of the position taken by the company in this matter, I am led to wondering whether professors who may be the beneficiaries of lecture or consulting fees and/or other perquisites endowed by the company, are required to undergo a security clearance regarding their attitudes towards the tobacco industry.

“I propose that my colleagues, students and fellow alumni here at Baruch take note of Philip Morris’ actions and then forego some of the purchases of the company’s products (including those of its General Foods, Kraft Foods, Miller Brewing, Ronzoni, et al., subsidiaries) and divert the amounts thus saved to the student projects which have been deprived of the $9,500.

“Beyond that, I invite colleagues in other institutions which may have been singled out for corresponding retribution to take note of any such action and to proceed accordingly.”

Letter from Robert L. Hess, president, Brooklyn College of the City of New York, to Henry and Edith Everett, defending the acceptance of financial support from Philip Morris
January 29, 1990

“It is important to remember … that Philip Morris is a vast conglomerate, and I would venture that the great majority of its business is other than tobacco related.

“In addition, Philip Morris is one of the most significant corporate supporters of the arts, public broadcasting, education, etc., in the country and has an exceptional record in its civic and philanthropic endeavors. Philip Morris has supported CSI for five years: 1984, $5,000; 1985, $5,000; 1986, $500; 1988, $4,500. This year, in addition to underwriting the 35th Anniversary poster (4,500), they will contribute $1,500 to the general operating fund.

“Thus, while I do not condone Philip Morris tobacco activities, I believe it appropriate to accept the support.”

Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU)

“Looks like a very promising idea.
“Minority Access, Inc. has a long history with B & W dating back to the KOOL Achiever program…
“The proposed program included a number of dimensions beyond what B & W would be interested in supporting, such as the ‘media watch’ idea. The list of high performing students as potential future employees might be explored separately…” (2 pages)

Meeting notes related to a presentation to Brown and Williamson Tobacco Company by Minority Access, Inc., a company helping corporations to reach more African American consumers
Identified in the Truth Tobacco Industry Documents
https://www.industrydocuments.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=lnkm0054
July 21, 1999

“PROPOSED NON-SMOKING PROGRAM FOR ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CHILDREN AND MEDIA WATCH SERVICES
SUBMITTED TO
BROWN AND WILLIAMSON TOBACCO CORPORATION
BY
MINORITY ACCESS, INC.” (26 pages)

Proposal to Brown and Williamson Tobacco Company by Minority Access, Inc., a company helping corporations to reach more African American consumers
Identified in the Truth Tobacco Industry Documents
https://www.industrydocuments.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=lnkm0054
July 21, 1999

Transcript of an interview with George L. Knox, III, vice president of corporate affairs and strategy, Philip Morris Companies, Inc. (4 pages)

WFSK-FM Radio of Fisk University (a historically black college)
Nashville, Tennessee
May 6, 1999

Anchor Washington Dobbins: …[W]hen we hear Philip Morris what is that exactly saying to us?

George Knox: [P]eople who do know about Philip Morris know that we make a whole wide range of cigarette brands and that’s what they know most about us. But we’re also the largest food company in America and I don’t think people know that we own Kraft which makes Jell-O and Maxwell House Coffee and all sorts of things that people like to eat. We own the Miller Brewing Company which makes all sorts of things that people of the appropriate age like to drink. So, we’re in a whole range of businesses around the worlds, including cigarettes, food, and beer, primarily.

Dobbins: And thank you for expressing the appropriate age…Exactly what does your job entail?

Knox: Well, we have a fairly large corporate affairs function populated by people in offices of Philip Morris all around the world who collectively are trying to find ways to represent the company in all sorts of interactive relationships having to do with community support…

Dobbins: It is because of your community outreach and being involved with the public that you are in Nashville today.

Knox: That’s right, we’re really happy to be here to take part in the inaugural celebration welcoming Fisk’s new president John Smith…Today I believe the Fisk board is meeting and we are having a reception for them, for him and for others in the Nashville community…And I’m happy to say that at this reception tonight we’ll be … announcing that Philip Morris Companies is going to be giving a contribution of ten thousand dollars in support of the Jubilee Singers….We can’t think of a more exciting way to bring these aspects of Philip Morris together. We’ve long been supporters of HBCUs and their programs and we’re very much interested in helping communities where we are and have been very active in Tennessee. Over the years Philip Morris has developed quite an interest in and reputation for being supporters of the arts. So we get a triple on this one by helping the Jubilee Singers at Fisk…

Juul Labs Inc. internal email with executive summary of meeting between Juul Labs and “several potential partners in Columbia, South Carolina, including veterans, health and wellness, community, business, law enforcement, and educational organizations and institutions.” These included the University of South Carolina and Benedict College, a historically Black college. (2 pages)

April 5, 2019

“We also had follow-up meeting with USC [University of South Carolina], who indicated that they, the Governor, and the Secretary of Commerce are all supportive of JUUL’s desire to partner with USC on a research project…”

“Program and Partnerships” (7 pages)

Plans by JUUL Labs, Inc. in 2019 (with several goals including “Reduce the Smoking Rate”) to forge partnerships in Baltimore with the University of Maryland, Baltimore and The Medical Education Resources Initiative for Teens (MERIT) a program helping underrepresented high school students learn about the health care field through internships at Johns Hopkins University Hospital.
February 23, 2019

Identified in the Truth Tobacco Industry Documents
https://www.industrydocuments.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=gypn0298

“JUUL
SOUTH CAROLINA COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS PROPOSAL
MAY 14, 2019” (8 pages)

Proposal by JUUL Labs, Inc. to invest 35 to 50 million dollars over five years in community partnerships in South Carolina, including the University of South Carolina and Benedict College (Historically Black College)
May 14, 2019

Identified in the Truth Tobacco Industry Documents
https://www.industrydocuments.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=tkpw0299

“Dear fellow Meharrians” (2 pages)

Letter from James E.K. Hildreth Sr., Ph.D., M.D., President and CEO of Meharry Medical College (a Historically Black College), to alumni and others
June 7, 2019

“I want to share with you important news: Today, Meharry Medical College is launching the Meharry Center for the Study of Social Determinants of Health. Our new Center will advance our mission by exploring the impact of social determinants — including smoking, alcohol use, food instability, and poverty — on underserved communities, and crafting programs and policies to help people lead healthier lives.

“Our first initiative at the Center will involve the study of tobacco and nicotine-related products through a five-year, $7.5 million independent research grant from JUUL Labs, Inc. I understand the involvement of JUUL may give pause, just as it did me. We have, however, spent countless hours airing our concerns with JUUL, and are now confident in moving forward because of the critical importance of the work we will do and the assurance we have that it will be entirely independent.

“As someone immersed in the Meharry mission, you are aware that we have historically found ourselves occupying the last seat at the table when research is conducted on emerging public health issues that profoundly affect minority communities. We have paid a heavy price for being shut out. Targeted unscrupulously by the tobacco industry, our community is replete with smokers — six million African Americans nationwide. The diseases that kill or cripple our patients at far higher rates than other populations — hypertension, diabetes, cardio-vascular and lung disease, and cancer — are exacerbated by smoking.

“We have been explicit with JUUL executives that we must and will always operate with complete autonomy and authority, and will publish our findings independently, no matter the consequences to their company…”

“Why is Meharry taking money from Juul Labs?”

Guest column by Alan Blum
The Tennessean (Nashville)
July 7, 2019

“Meharry’s acceptance of money from Juul Labs, Inc. — note the implied scientific name of the company — gives the appearance of tacitly endorsing the hypothesis that electronic cigarettes are a less harmful alternative to cigarettes and could save lives if smokers switched to them. However, any such saving of lives is being undermined by the dramatic rise in teenagers becoming addicted to nicotine through e-cigarettes. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 25% of high school seniors are regular e-cigarette users. Juul, which has captured 75% of the e-cigarette market in just three years, contains twice the concentration of nicotine than other e-cigarettes, and the younger the age of exposure to nicotine the more rapid and strong the addiction…

“Last December, the company sold a 30% stake to Altria, the manufacturer of the nation’s top-selling cigarette brand, Marlboro…

“Needless to add, Altria has never made protecting the health of African Americans a part of its mission. To the contrary, the company, which helped write the 2009 law that gave the U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulatory control over tobacco -products, threatened to drop its support if a ban on menthol were included in the hill. Upwards of 90% of African Americans who smoke buy menthol brands, far higher than any other group.

“Giving grants to study the e-cigarette harm reduction hypothesis is a clever strategy to make e-cigarette company money socially acceptable, just as the tobacco industry made it seem in the 1970s and 1980s with its support of many African American civic and cultural groups. Even after having been found liable in federal court in 2006 for violating civil racketeering laws by-lying about the health risks of cigarette smoking for 50 years, Altria has found willing research partners in academia, notably the University of Virginia and Virginia Commonwealth University. Getting Meharry’s name attached to Juul is another big win for Big Tobacco.”

“‘The unfinished business of the Bill of Rights…’
REVEREND THEODORE M. HESBURGH, C.S.S.
PRESIDENT EMERITUS
UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME”

Advertisement by Philip Morris Companies Inc. in support of the National Archives’ celebration [underwritten by Philip Morris] of the 200th anniversary of the Bill of Rights
The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, and other newspapers
1990

“‘We tend to forget that the Bill of Rights was not a reality for many people before the Civil Rights laws of the mid-’60’s.

“‘A century earlier, President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. But slavery didn’t really end for another 100 years.

“The fact is that the Bill of Rights did not automatically guarantee life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all Americans. We have had to enlarge our freedoms, promote human dignity, and eliminate injustice during all the 200 years of the Bill of Rights.

“‘The ideal is there, but the reality has always needed enlarging. It still does.'”

“‘The Bill of Rights was not ordained by nature or God.
It’s very human, very fragile..’
BARBARA JORDAN
FORMER MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES”

Advertisement by Philip Morris Companies Inc. in support of he National Archives’ celebration [underwritten by Philip Morris] of the 200th anniversary of the Bill of Rights
The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, and other newspapers
1990

“‘The Bill of Rights has been a source of comfort for me.

“‘While I was born into poverty, I knew it didn’t have to be a permanent condition. I was free to do whatever I wanted to do. And the liberating force throughout my life has been the Bill of Rights.

“‘It’s where the United States of America comes to life. Without it, this country as we know it would cease to exist.'”

Curator’s Note: Barbara Jordan [1939-1999] served in the United States House of Representatives from 1973 to 1979 (the first woman from Texas to be elected to the House), following which she became an adjunct professor at the University of Texas at Austin Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. Other individuals who appeared in the Philip Morris advertising campaign included Judith Jamison, artistic director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater; actor Charlton Heston; Everett Alvarez, Jr., a retired U.S. Navy pilot who endured 8 years and 7 months in captivity as a prisoner of war by the North Vietnamese; Valentina Kozlova, principal dancer at the New York City Ballet; the Reverend Benjamin J. Hooks [1925-2010], director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP); and … Abraham Lincoln. Philip Morris was a major sponsor of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, the New York City Ballet, and the NAACP. At the time of their appearance in the Philip Morris advertising campaign, only Jordan and Hesburgh [1917-2015] were actively affiliated with a university.

“PHILIP MORRIS BILL OF WRONGS” (4 pages)

Satirical brochure handed out by members of the physicians’ health activist group DOC ((Doctors Ought to Care)) at appearances in Houston and elsewhere around the country of the Philip Morris-sponsored tour of a copy of the Bill of Rights owned by the National Archives.
1990

“When Merry Ann Parks, executive director of the American Lung Association of Mid-New York and State Regent of the NY State Organization of Daughters of the American Revolution, was telephoned by a Philip Morris representative to suggest that the DAR sponsor the Bill of Rights appearance in Albany, NY, she was treated to a first-hand example of their respect for alternative views. She expressed some resistance to the firm’s proposal; when the PM employee asked her why, she explained her position with the Lung Association. PM abruptly hung up…”

Appendix