I recognize that VCU President Dr. Trani may be the most powerful person in Richmond, I realize that this is “tobacco country“, and I doubt if any local mainstream media will touch this, but I do think it is important to note that Oregon Hillians are not the only ones to question the character and integrity of his actions…
by Anne Landman on (Wed, 09/12/2007 – 00:25)
It’s no secret that Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) shares a cozy relationship with the tobacco industry. In fact, VCU and the industry have long supported each other in a number of ways.
In 1991, while other medical schools including Harvard and Johns Hopkins were divesting their tobacco stocks, VCU’s longtime President, Dr. Eugene Trani, was working to make VCU more tobacco-friendly, negotiating a new smoking policy that explicitly permitted smoking in 41 out of 42 of the University’s facilities. The one area where smoking was not permitted was VCU’s hospital, since this would have made it ineligible for accreditation, and hence government Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements. Philip Morris CEO Michael Szymanczyk was the keynote speaker at VCU’s graduation ceremony in 2003. In 2005, USA Today reported that PM had endowed a Chair of International Business in the University’s School of Business, and that PM was at that time funding 12 studies at VCU accounting for $4.4 million. Also in 2005, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported that PM was investing $300 million in a new Virginia Biotechnology Research Park and that VCU had been closely involved in the negotiations to create the facility. The Dispatch wrote that, thanks to the Biotech Park, “VCU is poised to become a partner in key areas of compatible research with Philip Morris.”
Thus Philip Morris successfully carried off the greatest public relations coup a cigarette company could ask for: making the interests of a major medical school, hospital and school of public health compatible with the country’s largest cigarette maker.
The close relationship between VCU and the tobacco industry alone should raise the eyebrows of people who are paying attention. While researching the relationship, I stumbled upon the additional fact that on February 11, 2000, Dr. Trani was appointed a Director of the Universal Corporation, a holding company that owns Universal Leaf Tobacco, the country’s largest purchaser and supplier of tobacco leaf. According to Universal’s Web site, Trani still sits on the company’s Board of Directors as of 2007. An August 9, 2007 filing with the Securities Exchange Commission available online reveals that he currently owns 6,250 shares of common stock in the Universal Corporation, thereby profiting personally from domestic and foreign cigarette sales.
I called Dr. Trani’s office to ask whether he or the university considered his affiliation with, or stock ownership in Universal Corporation to be a conflict of interest. The operator routed my call to VCU’s News Services department. Pam Lepley of the News Service Department declined to comment on Dr. Trani’s personal investments, and declined to speak for the university. However, she did explain that the University, which is based in Richmond, Virginia, heralds from tobacco country, and that someone from “outside the area” would perceive the relationship between the tobacco industry and VCU “differently.” I asked if the university was aware that over 400,000 Americans die from tobacco use each year. She declined to comment on that point. When asked about VCU’s longtime relationship with Philip Morris, she cited the economic importance of PM to the area, saying PM is more that just a cigarette maker. She mentioning that PM has donated equipment to VCU’s School of Engineering that has nothing to do with cigarette making.
Anyone who follows the industry knows that currying favor with, and maintaining relationships with major medical and research institutions is key to the tobacco industry’s ability to maintain credibility, and hence power, among legislators and regulators. VCU is certainly helping the industry on that count.
Apparently VCU feels it has gotten far more positive than negative results from its long and deep relationship to Big Tobacco. As long as it continues to feel no pain over this relationship, it will undoubtedly continue, no matter how unethical it may seems to those of us who live outside tobacco country.
Thanks for posting this. Good investigative journalism.
“Anyone who follows the industry knows that currying favor with, and maintaining relationships with major medical and research institutions is key to the tobacco industry’s ability to maintain credibility, and hence power, among legislators and regulators. VCU is certainly helping the industry on that count.”
The statement above really sounds like it was written by one of those conspiracy theorists. It should be noted that Anne Landman writes for PR Watch, project of the activist group “Center for Media and Democracy”. You may or may not agree with their politics, but the information coming from this group is slanted towards their own point of view.
Very interesting article and a good perspective to share since I doubt many give much thought to it. However, I have to think that Trani is probably seeking out funds because the state isn’t providing them. I didn’t go to VCU, but I have known many people who have attended for specific programs that the school is known for. All of them complained the VCU is underfunded with poor resources and that while the faculty are great, they are stretched too thin.
This is fantastic. As a newcomer to the area whose husband will be working in biotechnology at VCU, this is great information.
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That is not investigative journalism, nor is the piece based in fact.
PM is not an evil company, as the “reporter” makes it out to be. Both it and Universal Tobacco are major local employers that provide jobs and contribute to the local economy.
Trani’s relationship with “Big Tobacco” is a positive for VCU, not a negative. The PM complex at the biotech park is set up to research ways, most believe, to help smokers quit or develop new products that are healthier. It is not a tobacco plant. Building a business is about relationships and we should be thankful Trani has those in place.
Yes, tobacco kills. So do guns, alcohol and a range of other things, oh I could go on and on…..
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Yes, yes, more about the wickedness of my school! Good to know someone at an NGO somewhere agrees with hillbillies about the unbelievable evils of accepting money.
yes, all those hillbillies at the New York Times, Richmond.com, and Bacon’s Rebellion blog also.
How dare these hillbillies hold Trani and VCU responsible for their own actions.
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Dear JK,
Please explain how it is not investigative journalism to have researched the university president’s personal financial gain from increasing the number of smokers. When you write that the piece is not based in fact, please specify what assertions within the journalist’s piece you challenge as not being fact? Which facts do you wish to add to the discussion to refute the journalist?
How is it shown to be a fact to assert what “most believe” about VCU setting up to research how to help people break the powerful addiction to nicotine, or how to make tobacco smoking or chewing “healthier”?
Please do go on & on. Especially please clarify how to know whether there is such a thing as good or evil, or how those adjectives might be applied to a corporation. Not saying, mind you, that there are no answers, just that it is hard to tell how you are using the terms from the contribution to the discussion so far.
For example, if VCU were astonishingly found to be funding professorships on, say, heroin smuggling, or slavery, or blackmail, or just snake oil, would that taint the $ from the business relationship? How about funding from marijuana sales, if it is one of the area’s cash crops, creating jobs that contribute to many in the local economy? How about something that was once legal, such as cocaine in Coca Cola; would it still be a good university investment after it is recognized as a dangerous habit? Gambling? Is it ever wrong to take $?
It will help the supporters of VCU work together to see where we believe the same things, & where is the line that divides the two definitions when we are using one word to mean different things, even opposite things, like what is “evil”.
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