Tobacco

It's no secret that Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) shares a cozy relationship with the tobacco industry. In fact, VCU and the industry have long supported each other in a number of ways.

In 1991, while other medical schools including Harvard and Johns Hopkins were divesting their tobacco stocks, VCU's longtime President, Dr. Eugene Trani, was working to make VCU more tobacco-friendly, negotiating a new smoking policy that explicitly permitted smoking in 41 out of 42 of the University's facilities. The one area where smoking was not permitted was VCU's hospital, since this would have made it ineligible for accreditation, and hence government Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements. Philip Morris CEO Michael Szymanczyk was the keynote speaker at VCU's graduation ceremony in 2003. In 2005, USA Today reported that PM had endowed a Chair of International Business in the University's School of Business, and that PM was at that time funding 12 studies at VCU accounting for $4.4 million. Also in 2005, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported that PM was investing $300 million in a new Virginia Biotechnology Research Park and that VCU had been closely involved in the negotiations to create the facility. The Dispatch wrote that, thanks to the Biotech Park, "VCU is poised to become a partner in key areas of compatible research with Philip Morris."

It may seem incongruous to the average person why Philip Morris (PM) would back legislation to restrict its business, yet that is what PM seems to be is doing by supporting S. 625, the "Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act," the bill that would give the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authority over tobacco products. After all, PM has a corporate mandate to increase profits for its shareholders, so PM would not support this legislation if it wasn't going to benefit its bottom line, and it is practically an axiom in public health that whatever benefits PM's bottom line is going to be bad for public health. That's what makes this bill especially troubling to people who study tobacco industry documents; it is clear that PM had a hand in crafting it. That alone sounds like a lot, but PM's efforts to enact it are clearly delivering the company a hefty side-benefit of causing dissent within the tobacco control community over its passage.

UPDATE: Read the post-event report at: http://www.prwatch.org/node/6321

The Center for Media and Democracy is hosting a "Coffee with the Troops" at Yearly Kos this Sunday in Chicago, August 5, 9:30 a.m. at the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place. This is one of four Yearly Kos events with CMD staff. It features national leaders of Iraq Veterans Against the War and examines where online activists now stand on Iraq as the war drags on and campaigning for 2008 intensifies. Will the Netroots follow the lead of Democratic Party officials, candidates and strategists? Or, will online activists and bloggers help unite and mobilize a stronger, independent movement against the war?