According to Statistics Canada, tobacco is the leading cause of preventable death in Canada, claiming nearly 37 000 lives every year.
Tobacco companies have established relationships with academic institutions in an effort to help promote tobacco use, distort science, and create diversions regarding the harmful nature of tobacco.
Moreover, the Board of Governors has ruled that the Students Union cannot accept tobacco industry funding thereby creating an unacceptable double-standard.
The Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, the Faculty of Nursing and the School of Public Health have all recently voted to eliminate acceptance of tobacco industry funding.
A number of Canadian universities have severed financial ties with the tobacco industry, including the University of Lethbridge, the University of Toronto, and McGill University.
The University of Alberta’s financial ties with the tobacco industry are compromising the integrity of the institution, its faculty and its students.
Please sign the online petition so that the Administration knows that there are students who care, and who believe that accepting money from or investing money in the Tobacco Industry is wrong, if not by legal, but by ethical standards.
For University of Alberta students, faculty, staff and alumni:
http://www.petitiononline.
For everyone else:
http://www.PetitionOnline.com/uoatdpb/petition.html
For a copy of E-BUTT's press release, please click here.
Thank you,
Aditya Rao
Education Bringing Youth Tobacco Truths, Alberta
Tyler Ward
Education Bringing Youth Tobacco Truths, Canada
5 comments:
Interesting.
Where is your funding coming from?
What ties do you have to professional anti-smoking organizations funded by Big Pharma?
Don't you think it's a bit hypocritical to be focusing solely on Big Tobacco funding?
What about all that funding from multinational pharmaceutical companies - shouldn't you be protesting that? After all, cigarettes aren't the only product that - used as intended by the manufacturer - kills thousands of people...there are 10,000-12,000 Adverse Drug Reaction deaths in Canada every year. These are deaths that occur when people take prescription drug as intended by the manufacturer and die as a direct result of the drug.
What about all that multinational oil company funding? You do know about Global Warming, don't you?
[Disclaimer: I am a lifelong bicycle commuter who has never owned or driven a gas-powered vehicle. I have been a social justice activist for 32 years, but I have never taken a penny in funding from any company, non-profit corporation or government agency for my activism]
Roy Harrold
Edmonton
Tyler & associates -
I'm afraid I'm not reassured by the revelation that you are funded by Physicians for a Smoke-free Canada. What does that mean? Are you employed by PSFC? What does the funding go to? If it pays you wages - I can't respect that, sorry. I respect volunteer student groups (I was involved in many, in my day), but not paid activism. I don't see much difference between that and shilling for a corporation, frankly.
Will you be paid a "bounty" if you get other Universities to refuse tobacco funding? Did you get a cash "pay-off" for your prior activism - was there a cash component to the award PSFC gave you?
I understand you are students, and have other priorities, but I should tell you that failure to respond to inquiries publicly will cost you the respect that is being extended to you now.
Roy Harrold
Ethics ? Let’s discuss ethics, shall we?
How ethical is it for the RWJ Foundation, the philanthropic tentacle of Johnson & Johnson, makers of pharmaceutical smoking cessation products to finance in the billions of dollars, anti-smoking groups’ efforts to change laws and policies? You do understand how lucrative anti-smoking policies are for Big Pharma, don’t you ? Millions have quit without their products who have at best a 10% success rate, yet they are being peddled left and right by anti-smoking groups all over the world.
http://cleanairquality.blogspot.com/2006/09/now-that-rwjf-has-put-smoking-bans-in.html
How ethical do you think it is for the WHO to partner with Big Pharma to ‘’help’’ (read ‘’coerce’’) smokers to quit?
http://www.who.int/inf-pr-1999/en/pr99-04.html
And if you think that Canada is pure and white in all this, think again. This close relationship between Big Pharma and Big Anti-tobacco may have started right in Canada:
A Reflection On Alternative Nicotine Delivery Systems
Mark C. Taylor, MD,. FRCSC
Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada (circa 1997?)
http://www.smoke-free.ca/pdf_1/ands.pdf
Iro Cyr
www.cagecanada.ca
When this debate was raging last April, it was stated as fact in the Edmonton Journal that the University of Alberta's decision to refuse all research funding from tobacco companies "will enhance the school's reputation as a centre of independent research."
Actually, the opposite is true. If the University rejects all studies that would be funded by those arguably supporting one particular view while welcoming funding from those supporting the opposite view it can hardly be called an enhancement to independent research.
Unless the University wishes to display a shameful lack of ethics, it needs to adopt the same policy for all grants from organizations publicly devoted to smoking bans, higher taxes on smokers, or other such goals that would interfere with true neutrality of research.
The University should also insist that no government organization funded by tobacco taxes be allowed to provide grants since the source of that money is indeed "Big Tobacco" and since such bodies would be biased against supporting studies that might support lower taxation levels on smokers.
Imagine if you will a study designed to examine the question of whether eliminating tobacco taxes might reduce underage smoking by wiping out illegal black market sales. What source would a researcher at the University of Alberta now have to support such an investigation? Or how about a study whose preliminary data indicate no reduction in heart attacks among nonsmokers after smoking bans are implemented? Does anyone seriously think that funding for that would come from an organization like the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation while Johnson & Johnson itself continues to aggressively market "Nicotine Replacement Therapy" aides?
Research studies are always inherently biased to some degree in their design, choice of subject or data, and ultimate interpretation so as to please the potential funder. The argument could even be made that "no-strings" grants from Big Tobacco might be truly more impartial overall than grants from organizations that state clearly that their grants are meant to advance the goal of reducing smoking.
This push for Universities to limit grants to those supporting "politically acceptable" research is both unethical and, in light of what we have seen historically in other countries, actually dangerous. Researchers should be free to seek support for their work and beliefs wherever that search for support should take them: that is the only true way to advance scientific knowledge.
Michael J. McFadden
Author of "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains"
http://pasan.TheTruthIsALie.com
After making the preceding post I remembered being criticized last April when I submitted the same points to the Edmonton Journal for not fully identifying my activist activities.
So, to avoid a similar Ad Homninem attack here, let me note that while the only possible financial "conflict of interest" for me is my authorship, I am also the founder and director of Pennsylvania Smokers' Action Network and the Mid-Atlantic Coordinator of the Citizens' Freedom Alliance / SmokersClub.com
Michael J. McFadden
Author of "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains"
http://pasan.TheTruthIsALie.com
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