EDMONTON - Bruce Saville, member of the board of governors of the University of Alberta, is under fire from an anti-tobacco student group for not supporting its campaign to ban tobacco-funded research money to the university.
In October, when a group of students from E-Butt (Education-Bringing Youth Tobacco Truths) approached Saville, he wouldn't take their pamphlet about getting big tobacco off campus, saying "No, I think dirty money is money."
His words were captured on video and....Read full article...
2 comments:
I would just flat-out support your effort, except for three things:
1) The last "student-led" anti-tobacco group I investigated turned out to be staffed by paid employees of a political lobby group - Action On Smokung & Health - using monies granted to ASH by AADAC. And then it was revealed that the guy who ran AADAC's tobacco control unit - Lloyd Carr - had a criminal record, lied about his qualifications for the job and embezzled $640,000 from AADAC's tobacco control grant funds.
2)Anti-smoking and Tobacco control organizations & their spokemen have garnered a lot of support, admiration and applause over the years, for their role in uncovering and exposing tobacco company attempts to manipulate everyone through sophisticated media campaigns on the health risks of their products. In particular, exposing tobacco company attempts to buy themselves favorable "research" findings was seen as an objectively heroic defense of "the public good". Many ordinary folks, who perceive massive multinational corporations as lacking any conscience in their pursuit of profit, and as abusing their wealth and power - to seduce & corrupt politicians and the mass media so that they would ignore the plight of powerless citizens who are harmed in some way by unethical corporate behaviour - came to see these anti-smoking groups as "fighting for us and our values".
Few people ever imagined, (and most still cannot conceive), that some of these groups were merely eliminating competition for calculated control over public and policy-maker's thinking.
Unfortunately, rather than 'clearing the field' of deceptive & manipulative misrepresentation, some of these agencies and groups were actively copying the very same manipulation and marketing techniques employed by the tobacco industry - but for their own purposes. And, this includes commissioning research studies that have very little to do with advancing scientific knowledge and everything to do with calculated propaganda! So much for selfless defense of "the public good", so much for their professed devotion to scientific integrity, and so much for honest, unbiased, manipulation-free communications to the public.
http://surrealitytimes.blogspot.com/2007/12/tobacco-control-propaganda-part-3.html
3)The "neutral" sources of funding you suggest taking the place of Big Tobacco funding, aren't neutral at all! ALL the non-corporate sources of funding for research into tobacco & smoking hypothesis require that the applicant prove ahead of time that their research will advance the social and political agendas of the funders!
Roy Harrold
Edmonton
Tyler - as a demonstration of my sincerity, and that I'm true to my word...
http://surrealitytimes.blogspot.com/2008/01/tyler-ward-is-good-guy.html
Roy Harrold
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