Sludge Watch ==> Big Money, The University, and Public Health

[Maureen Reilly]

Published: Mar 07, 2008
Big money, the university and public health


Steve Wing and Cat Warren

Institutions of higher learning are tax-exempt and supported because they 
are supposed to serve the public interest. However, a recent wave of books 
and scholarly articles shows how universities are being harnessed to serve 
the narrower interests of corporations.

Their conclusions are clear: Corporate research is aimed at maximizing 
profits, not necessarily in ensuring the public good. As economist Robert 
Reich, author of "Supercapitalism," has pointed out: "The basic reality is 
that corporations are not charitable or public institutions. They do not 
exist primarily to advance the public interest but their investors' 
interests."

This is why the planned renaming of the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Public 
Health as the Dennis and Joan Gillings School of Global Public Heath, in 
exchange for a gift of $50 million, raises concerns.

Dennis Gillings is CEO of Quintiles Transnational, which bills itself as 
"the world's leading pharmaceutical services company, with annual revenues 
of $2 billion." A School of Public Health news release announcing Gillings' 
gift noted it would help the school speed approval of new drugs. The first 
"laboratory of innovation" funded by Gillings conducts research on 
statistical methods for drug trials.

PUBLIC HEALTH IS CONCERNED WITH PROMOTING HEALTH AND PREVENTING DISEASE. 
This means clean air and water, nutritious food, safe working conditions, 
neighborhoods, housing and transportation. Environments that promote 
physical, social and mental well-being help people remain healthy and reduce 
the need for medical treatments.

Mass drug therapy as a public health strategy might be the preferred option 
for pharmaceutical companies. But it can divert efforts from creating 
working and living conditions that prevent disease. The size of the Gillings 
gift, which comes with a new School of Public Health policy board that 
includes both Gillingses, suggests a level of influence that could affect 
not only individual research projects, but also the character of the 
school's approach to public health.

The gift will also be used to increase the "financial literacy" of public 
health students. Financial literacy is important. However, the curriculum is 
a responsibility of the faculty. Shaping it to please wealthy donors raises 
questions about whether the university is up for sale. Both a 2006 UNC 
provost report and the American Association of University Professors are 
clear that faculty, not outside donors, have primary responsibility for the 
curriculum.

Other developments also suggest how the School of Public Health is 
responding to big money. Recently, faculty were asked to develop a proposal 
to study indoor air pollution in the United Arab Emirates. That proposal now 
exceeds $6 million. Although 80 percent of the UAE's population consists of 
disenfranchised guest workers, UNC would study only homes of mostly 
wealthier native Emerati. This appears inconsistent with one of the school's 
stated missions, to "eliminate health disparities across North Carolina and 
around the world."

The school is also developing new associations in closed, off-the-record 
meetings, with executives of corporations such as Nestle, McDonald's, 
PepsiCo and Kraft Foods. Why seek partnerships with companies that profit 
from mass marketing of high-calorie foods? The goal, according to one 
administrator, is to help stem the global obesity epidemic "while improving 
profitability." Again, the problem is that the best approach for public 
health may not be the best recipe for corporate profits.

The pro-industry direction of the School of Public Health is in step with 
policies of UNC-Chapel Hill and the UNC system. Administrators at Chapel 
Hill recently explained that the university is falling behind in the race to 
obtain corporate funding, and that we are in danger of losing the best 
faculty and students unless Carolina North is developed quickly as a 
satellite research park that can avoid on-campus restrictions on industry 
funding.


As Jennifer Washburn noted in her recent book "University, Inc.: Corporate 
Corruption of Higher Education," state governments increasingly view public 
universities more as engines of economic development tied to corporate 
interests than as independent institutions responsible to society as a 
whole.
CORPORATE DONATIONS ARE AN ACCEPTED PART of the non-state support that keeps 
universities in business. Industry funding can contribute importantly to 
public health research, and research faculty are in constant competition for 
funding. But the question remains: How much influence should industries that 
put profits before public health have on the university?

The School of Public Health's mission, like the UNC system's, is to serve 
the public. However, even as manipulation of science against the public 
interest receives more attention (think tobacco, global warming, drug risks, 
environmental health), our universities risk defining corporate interests as 
the public interest. If universities are skewed more toward the agenda of 
for-profit companies, they will be increasingly unable to promote public 
welfare when it conflicts with industry's bottom line.

Vigorous public discussion of these issues is critical for maintaining our 
universities as a public resource. It is indeed our responsibility to have 
that discussion.

Steve Wing is associate professor of epidemiology at the UNC School of 
Public Health and vice president of the N.C. State Conference of the 
American Association of University Professors. Cat Warren is associate 
professor in the Department of English at N.C. State University and 
president of the N.C.-AAUP.

http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/columns/story/987167.html