TOBACCO RESEARCH FUNDED BY THE TOBACCO INDUSTRY - AN ETHICAL CONFLICT

What moral misgivings may arise in connection with the financing of re search! Does the source of the funds for a research project matter? To bacco exemplifies this problem well. Tobacco smoking is the largest si ngle cause of illness and premature death in the industrialized world, but the tobacco industry is also one of its most profitable commercia l undertakings. Decades of increasing scientific evidence for the harm fulness of smoking have increased the moral pressure on manufacturers. Good relations with the scientific community is a desirable way to de monstrate the legitimacy of their operations. Medical researchers shou ld act in accordance with the classical ethical principles of medicine ; autonomy, doing good, justice and doing no harm. The activities of t he tobacco manufacturing companies ave not in accordance with these pr inciples. Every medical researcher or physician who uses funding from the tobacco companies cannot escape the fact of lending his or her nam e to the manufacture of a lethal product.