CONTROVERSY CONTINUES OVER UC TOBACCO GRANTS
The UC Board of Regents pushed back, yet again, making a decision
on whether to prohibit accepting grants from tobacco companies
for research, even after the Academic Senate Assembly vetoed the
idea last week with a sweeping vote.
While the Regents originally planned to discuss the policy,
RE-89, today at 9:30 a.m., dialogue is postponed until the
Regents' July meeting, said UC Spokesperson Jennifer Ward. She
said discussion has been delayed because Regent John J. Moores,
an important head of RE-89, was not able to attend this
particular portion of the meeting. . . .
UCSB History Dept. Director Ann Marie Plane, who attended the
Academic Senate meeting, said she voted with the majority of the
faculty against the ban.
"Basically what it came down to was: Do we already have enough
to protect academic freedom and to ensure research quality was
high?" Plane said. "What everyone felt was that we already have
adequate safeguards in place. We certainly weren't endorsing the
tobacco industry with this decision."
Plane said the University's existing policies have the potential
to detect skewed research results.
"If there is a researcher somewhere that isn't objective, that's
going to come out in the normal peer review process," Plane said.
