British American Tobacco is funding around ten medical research projects in British universities, medical schools and general practices. It is spending Pounds 500,000 a year on such projects, around two-thirds of which are in the United Kingdom.
This revelation comes as a scientist at a Medical Research Council unit said he regrets accepting money from BAT and the MRC's head of communications remained suspended yesterday after she condemned the funding last week.
BAT said this week that the research it funds is approved by an "external panel of eminent scientists" but it would not reveal who they are. The research includes foetal nutrition, genetics and "variations in cytochromes and enzymes".
BAT said: "The recipients require confidentiality from us. They don't want discussion about their research. It is often competititive, it is all peer reviewed and they don't want discussion before they have met the scientific standards properly."
This month the MRC council will review the ethics of its industrial funding. Jane Lee, head of corporate affairs, said that scientists in its university units "are free to attract external money for their work provided it doesn't distort their and the MRC's mission and provided there is sensible control over the results".
Meanwhile, leading scientists disagreed this week about such funding. Sir Richard Doll, who discovered the link between lung cancer and smoking, said that accepting tobacco money was fine if the scientist retained total control over how the money was used and over the publishing of the research, although he would not accept such money himself.
"The Department of Health is worse than industry in this respect becasue it demands the ability to veto publication. I personally would not take money from it,'he said.
Sir Ron Oxburgh, rector of Imperial College, said that all science research is already indirectly supported by tobacco profits because of the tax the companies pay. He said that money from any legal activity was a legitimate pot from which researchers could draw funds.
But Christopher Edwards, principal of Imperial College Medical School and a member of the MRC council until last year, criticised the MRC's position. "I don't think that their units should be accepting money from a source like that. If you are the major funder of medical research in the UK I don't think it is appropriate to be seen to be being linked with the tobacco industry".
The British Heart Foundation has decided that it will not fund scientists who also receive money from the tobacco industry.