Women’s Causes: The industry sponsored the Virginia Slims Women’s Legend Tennis Tour. and Woman Thing Music — as well as many women’s organizations including Catalyst and the Republican Women’s Leadership Forum.
Youth. Incredibly, organizations that focus on children — including the National 4-H Council and the Children and Youth At-Risk Program of the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Work — were supported by tobacco funds.
What nice people those cigarette manufacturers are!
They manufacture a product that kills over 400,000 Americans each year, and they they give away hundreds of millions of dollars to good causes.
While Dr. Siegel’s new report does not go beyond documenting the extent of philanthropy from cigarette manufacturers, a 1990 report by Larry White, published by the American Council on Science and Health, did look at the dilemma, “The Ethics of Accepting Tobacco Money.” Mr. White acknowledges that the recipients of tobacco money customarily engage in “good works.” And it might be argued that the value of those good works outweighs any ethical considerations about taking tobacco money.
Yet, there is broad agreement that money from certain sources should not be deemed acceptable for funding even good work. For example, few if any charitable institutions would knowingly accept money from the mafia. Why? Because accepting it would make them an accomplice to the immoral actions of the donor. A recipient of such funds also might feel obligated not to offend the donor for fear of losing future funding.
Further, it is evident that in receiving money, an organization or researcher or a performing artist is bestowing something on the giver — in this case, the cigarette company. When Philip Morris sponsors an event at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, some of the museum’s legitimacy rubs off on the cigarette maker. As Mr. White noted, “When Harvard University accepts an R.J. Reynolds grant, RJR acquires a little chunk of Harvard’s credibility.”
There is a particular cruel irony in Big Tobacco’s support of organizations that serve youth, minorities and women — three groups the cigarette manufacturers are targeting for cigarette sales, thus imperiling their health and life.
As Mr. White concluded, “Whatever good tobacco industry philanthropy does is more than offset by the vast toll in human suffering caused by smoking their products. Tobacco industry giving is not politically neutral. It is intended to promote an industry whose product kills hundreds of thousands of Americans each year.”
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