A conflict of interest may not always be what it seems. Consider the case of Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante.
During his tenure as a state assemblyman between 1993 and 1999, Bustamante accepted nearly $80,000 from tobacco interests, according to a Sept. 19 report in the San Francisco Chronicle. Now, as an ex officio regent, Bustamante will cast one of 26 votes deciding whether the University of California will ban the use of research funding from tobacco companies. With his past financial ties to Big Tobacco, shouldn’t we be worried about a conflict of interest?
Maybe not. Interestingly, Bustamante is one of the loudest supporters of the tobacco-funds ban, having spent the past few weeks urging his fellow regents to climb aboard. Arguing that scientific integrity suffers when industries sponsor research on subjects in which they have a vested interest, Bustamante cited a 2003 UCLA study — paid for in part by the tobacco industry — that concluded previous estimates overstated the likelihood that secondhand smoke causes lung cancer.
Bustamante’s condemnation of tobacco-funded research — despite his past acceptance of substantial contributions from tobacco companies — raises an interesting question: Does an apparent “conflict of interest” necessarily compromise the integrity of the parties involved?
Certainly there’s nothing inherently wrong with tobacco companies funding university research. There’s nothing inherently wrong, even, when those funds are used to research tobacco-related subjects. It is only when financial leverage is allowed to influence the outcome of that research that we should be concerned.
And Bustamante’s example may be a good one. The UCLA study flies in the face of a swarm of research showing exactly the opposite: Secondhand smoke is classified as a Class A “known human carcinogen” by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. National Toxicology Program and the World Health Organization.
Critics of the UCLA study have pointed out serious methodological flaws, such as the lack of environmental controls and a limited sample size. The study relies on data gathered between 1959 and 1972 about smokers and their nonsmoking spouses, who are presumed to have significant exposure to second-hand smoke. There is no data on the smoking habits of the sample group past 1972 — but the study measures causes of death for the sample group through 1998. In that 26-year period, did the test group smoke more, smoke less or even quit smoking altogether? Did any of the nonsmokers divorce or separate from their partners, significantly reducing their level of exposure? The UCLA study doesn’t say.
Study author James Enstrom defended his research, noting that the editor of the British Medical Journal, where the study was first published, still stands by his decision to run the piece.
“I couldn’t have lasted for 33 years at UCLA if I was some sort of corrupt tool of the tobacco industry,” he told the Chronicle. “The whole notion of the university is to allow researchers to pursue research in the way they feel it is appropriate. [Bustamante] is not entitled to take away my right to do legitimate research and publish it in peer research journals. It is more the principle than it is the amount of funding.”
Enstrom has a point. Should the regents, using a project’s funding source, determine what conclusions are valid? What if researchers discover something fundamentally new, something that goes against everything we currently know — but is still correct?
Clearly, the litmus test of a research program should not be the source of funding for a project, but the quality of research produced. Does a study follow rigorous scientific methodology? Has it been thoroughly reviewed and evaluated by a relevant community of peers?
And then there’s another consideration: Why ban only tobacco companies? Why not prohibit funding from, say, the pharmaceutical industry, which provides an estimated 70 percent of the nationwide funding for clinical drug studies?
In 2004, private donors — including pharmaceutical heavyweights Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Wyeth, Eli Lilly, Merck, GlaxoSmithKline and others — gave over $20 million to a national Alzheimer’s research program, about two-thirds of which was directed to UCSD. Also in 2004, Pfizer gave UCSD $500,000 in equipment, as well as $200,000 to finance an undergraduate molecular synthesis course. AstraZeneca has helped foot the bill for several UCSD pediatrics research programs.
These contributions to UCSD alone far surpass the roughly $2.9 million a year in funding that the University of California receives from tobacco companies. And perhaps that’s why funding from tobacco companies is the only log currently on the chopping block — compared to the UC system’s $4 billion annual research budget, $2.9 million is chump change.
And Bustamante, who has historically been supportive of tobacco interests, has found his anti-tobacco stump conspicuously close to this November’s election, in which he is running for insurance commissioner. Curious.
With an increasingly limited pool of funds to draw from, the University of California cannot afford to turn down research grants from the corporate sector. But neither can it afford to compromise its intellectual integrity, which is at the heart of the university’s mission.
Fortunately, the two are not mutually exclusive. Focusing on the quality of research instead of the funding source — with special attention to rigorous methodology and extensive peer review — is the only sure way to produce useful, accurate science.
And truthfully speaking, are the tobacco company reports really fooling anyone? The regents shouldn’t even bother with this one.
