Annex 2
DAVID SELLS:
British scientists have long complained about
the growing reluctance of central Government to provide more funds
for research. In the Thatcher years this belt tightening has been
an essentially ideological matter—the Government finger
has pointed to private industry as the proper source of replenishment
of the research coffers.
And industry has, indeed, contributed much,
much more. In many areas of research private funding now positively
dwarfs the sums proffered by the Department of Education and Science,
the DHSS and other dispersers of public largesse. All, however,
is not well, for, it is said, he who pays the piper calls the
tune.
Some scientists are fretting about the conditions
under which they accept private funding and its effects on the
quality and objectivity of their research. Jeremy Hayes reports.
JEREMY HAYES:
Three months ago Professor Roger Perry of Imperial
College in London wrote to one of his sponsors. He was reporting
on the findings of his environmental study into pollution in the
work place caused by cigarette smoke. From tests in 3,000 locations
he found that for the three compounds which had been analysed:
nicotine, carbon monoxide and particulate matter—that's
general debris in layman's language—the levels were considerably
below industrial safety limits.
His sponsors were delighted. They were members
of the Tobacco Advisory Council, a body which promotes the interests
of the British tobacco industry. In fact, so delighted were they
that they decided on a massive advertising campaign which would
feature the Professor's letter, and carry the words: If you're
worried about other people's tobacco smoke, this should clear
the air.
Imperial College objected. The study had not
considered the health implications of passive smoking, it had
only analysed three compounds out of over 200. And after some
recrimination and at some expense, the campaign was dropped.
Professor Perry says he doesn't object to the
Tobacco Council forming its own conclusions about passive smoking.
What made him cross was its attempt to pre-empt proper scientific
debate about his study.
PROFESSOR ROGER
PERRY:
I think it is more appropriate for the findings
of a research group such as mine to be published in the scientific
literature and debated thereafter. Once the work is in the open
scientific literature it is public knowledge and clearly it will
be used by a number of bodies in arguing the scientific merit
or otherwise of the case.
If it is to be more widely used in advertising,
then clearly it must be with the complete co-operation of the
university body concerned. It is important that they are not just
producing jaw for propaganda.
J.H:
Professor Noble's advice to follow scientists
is not to sell yourself short, read the fine print of any contracts
you undertake, and take legal advice. Never, he says, consent
to the right to veto publication.
Dr Dawson of the BMA, though, is more particular
still. Don't he says, take dirty money.
DR DAWSON:
Certainly in relation to the tobacco industry
we believe that if money is to be either donated by the industry
or taken from the industry for the purposes of doing research,
then that should be taken by Government and then distributed through
established research channels such as the Medical Research Council.
I think that it's the maintenance of the distance
and the disclosure of interest that are the two main safeguards
against pressure coming into the establishment of research or
the publication of results coming from research.
J.H:
But keeping your distance may not in practice
be so easy.
Contributions from industry for research in
universities are now at their highest-ever level. Business is
booming. Promising work is being supported by companies who see
the campuses as the focus for new innovative products. But even
those who've welcomed this, like Professor Noble, are beginning
now to sound a note of caution.
PROFESSOR D.N:
I would like to see the combination of public
and private funding of research to develop hand in hand rather
than being viewed as competing alternatives. And one of the things,
therefore, that I would like to say for example to the Government,
would be, look we've done extremely well in private funding recently,
it would actually ensure that the balance is kept right if the
Government saw that as an opportunity for saying well, now there
is substantial increase in private funding of research, it's time
to moderately increase the Government funding to ensure that the
balance is kept reasonably correct.
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