Charity: `Tainted' tobacco money banned

A cancer charity announced yesterday that it would ban grants to research teams "tainted by tobacco money".

The Cancer Research Campaign, which is providing pounds 49m for research this year, issued a code of practice saying that in future it would not support any facility which received funding from the tobacco industry.

The draft code of practice, which is being circulated to vice chancellors for comment, was drawn up after the disclosure last year that British American Tobacco was to give pounds 1.5m to Cambridge University to fund a chair of International Relations. In support of its move, the charity also published the findings of a MORI poll of 2,000 people which showed 76 per cent said they would distrust scientists working for the tobacco industry.

- Jeremy Laurance