Charity Cancer Research UK's income drops

Who knows what has caused this drop in the income of Cancer Research UK – whether it is another symptom of the recession or whether other considerations play a part. As we enter a day when record public sector strikes are expected, it is clear that much of the general public, who fund charities, are under severe and continuing financial pressure.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I have a specific gripe with this page from the Tobacco Advisory Group on the CRUK web site, in which they virtually dictate the results of any study that they fund on tobacco:

TAG particularly funds research and activities that support:

• Current UK policy priorities, e.g. see the 'Beyond Smoking Kills' report.
• Greater regulation of all products containing tobacco and nicotine.
• Greater tax and/or smuggling measures in the UK.
• Tackling health inequalities and addressing the needs of groups with particularly high rates of tobacco use.

The only way to describe this is policy-led research: in other words it is politically motivated – not led by an open-minded investigation of the science surrounding tobacco and health, but led by the desire to restrict tobacco consumption. If anybody wonders about the sheer volume of studies that emerge on a weekly basis on tobacco this kind of agenda will help to explain it, along with the likes of TRDRP in the US. Funds exist solely to ensure that studies with a specific anti-tobacco agenda see the light on a daily basis.

In Scotland, the Tobacco Advisory Group of Cancer Research UK has been particularly active, contributing significantly to major policy papers on which the Scottish Government is expected to base its tobacco policy – this information is obtained by searching Sheila Duffy (ASH Scotland) on the CRUK site. Search Deborah Arnott (Action on Smoking and Health in London) and you will get similar results. 

I also don't think a charity should be writing government policy on tobacco control. ASH Scotland is a voluntary organisation that calls itself a charity, which employs (at last count) 27 personnel and has collected nearly £1 millions in Scottish government grants in recent years. (This submission responds to a call for evidence from the Scottish Government's finance committee for 2012/13, and seems to say in outline that they need money to discourage people from smoking, and yet more money to ascertain whether the money they spent in the first place was effective.) It is effectively a substantial arm of the government (last I was aware, there were only four staff at Administrative Officer level or above dealing with illegal drugs in the Scottish Government, plus secretarial support). Already heavily funded by the Scottish Government, ASH Scotland gets additional support from Cancer Research UK. This, to me, is an improper use of resources contributed to charity.

I would be interested to know whether Eddie (comment #1) is correct in his supposition that the public's awareness of this use of Cancer Research UK's money has contributed significantly to its decline in fortunes . I haven't purchased anything in a CRUK shop since I became aware of the extent of its policy-led anti-tobacco funding. I don't mind scientists discovering that tobacco is dangerous if they approach their research in an open-minded way, but I do mind it when a result justifying further restrictions on the tobacco trade is made a condition of funding of this research (it can't even be called medical research if these are the conditions set). 

Cancer Research urges Durham University to give back tobacco company money

Further to this story, Cancer Research UK has advised Durham University to return the donation that it received from British American Tobacco.

From the point of view of CRUK, it seems that tobacco company money, uniquely among the gifts from over 2,000 donors to the Durham University scholarship fund, is likely to have been given solely and cynically to promote the sales of tobacco in Afghanistan. All other donors are of course completely above board, without any ulterior motive, no corporate responsibility brownie points or prospective markets in Afghanistan (the beneficiaries of the fund are Afghan women scholars). Among all the people who have donated money, only the tobacco donation demonstrates the true evil of capitalism, where every apparently generous act is ultimately a selfish one, and all the other donors are innocent philanthropists.

Cancer Research UK funds studies on cancer. I wouldn't claim that its tobacco research forms a significant share of all the research it funds, but Cancer Research UK indicates that applicants for research grants in tobacco must follow a research agenda that favours tobacco restrictions. This seems to me back to front: announcing the policy prescriptions of the research before research has been done. In order to get the research money you have to accept a certain conclusion before even starting. You will get money for twisting the data to fit CRUK's ideas about tobacco policy, but not for mounting an effective challenge to it. For example, such a challenge could point out that if policies are too restrictive, criminals will get a foothold on the market with unregulated tobacco, which is potentially more dangerous to human health than regulated tobacco.

This is why I would quarrel with Cancer Research UK's claim that 'tobacco cash is bad for your moral health'. Cancer Research UK has no brief to lecture people about their morals. I don't consider their conditions for tobacco research grants particularly ethical.

More on Cancer Research UK Funding of Tobacco Control Strategy

I've been back to the Cancer Research discussion on possible cuts to charity funding. Among their committees is the Tobacco Advisory Group, which awards funding for projects relevant to the following priorities.

• Current UK policy priorities, e.g. see the 'Beyond Smoking Kills' report.
• Greater regulation of all products containing tobacco and nicotine.
• Greater tax and/or smuggling measures in the UK.
• Tackling health inequalities and addressing the needs of groups with particularly high rates of tobacco use.

Research must support existing tobacco control objectives.

The Tobacco Advisory Group is just one of 11 funding committees. However smoking-related research grants are awarded by other committees including more clinical work. This link shows a search of ongoing CRUK-funded research on smoking. You will find nothing here to challenge the official consensus on tobacco control or smoking cessation. I particularly like this logic-defying piece:

Most smokers who quit successfully do so spontaneously, without planning or support. However, most will make multiple 'spontaneous' attempts to quit before succeeding to long term abstinence from smoking. Treatments such as nicotine replacement therapy increase the chances of quitting; it is therefore logical to try to find ways of encouraging those making a spontaneous quit attempt to use additional sources of support.

In other words, give nicotine therapy to people who are trying to 'quit' unaided even though 'most smokers who quit successfully do so spontaneously, without planning or support'. Has the researcher seen this gem from Action on Smoking and Health, 16 July 2010:

We know NRT can improve people's chances of giving up smoking, but it doesn't mean you won't start smoking again. In one study, 9 in 100 people quit smoking for a year with the help of NRT, but only 5 in 100 were non-smokers eight years later.

Other ongoing research projects include plain packaging, tobacco display and much more on cessation. You can read the future of tobacco control here.

I guess I expect the planning for tobacco control to come out of public funding, but not necessarily from medical charity funding.