Tobacco money is huge, gigantic, enormous, ginormous...
And, it can buy people and universities, too.
The Virginia Commonwealth University has been bought.
Philip Morris has a contract with researchers at the University that:
1. bars professors from publishing the results of their studies
2. bar professors from even talking about their results
"What'd you learn there, prof?"
"Hmmpf."
3. requires university officials to decline comment when asked about the agreement
4. requires those same university officials to report to Philip Morris when they have been asked a question
5. surrender all patents and IPRs to PM.
6. not fess up to how much it cost the univversity to keep its mouth shut.
It's less than $227 milllion, the total of all grant money received by the 32,000-student university system.
Philip Morris is the tobacco industry leader in academic research.
Only problem is, we don't know what they are finding out.
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