No Smoking, Says California Faculty

doi:10.1126/science.316.5827.967b

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ScienceScope

Last week, the University of California (UC) faculty senate voted 43-4 against a university-wide ban on tobacco money for research. But antitobacco crusaders haven't given up their 4-year fight. Benjamin Allen, a UC Berkeley law student and future student member of UC's governing body, the regents, is campaigning for a sterner review process for all tobacco industry-funded grants.

Advocates of the ban say that tobacco firms sponsor questionable research and strong-arm fundees. But critics worry that such a ban would curtail academic freedom and threaten other corporate-funded research. The regents put off a vote in January pending the faculty senate's action (Science, 26 January, p. 447) and are expected to reject the ban at their July meeting.

Allen's proposal includes an additional level of grant review and a new faculty board to analyze research. Also offered is the chance for individual UC units such as the UC San Diego Cancer Center to ban tobacco money--an action the faculty senate outlawed in 2005. "UC is the only institution in the world that forbids its academic units from declining tobacco money," says Stanton Glantz, a bioengineer at UC San Francisco and a key force behind the proposed ban. Stanford is debating a similar ban and could vote on it as early as this week.