SKorean university quits smoking research funded by US tobacco giant

SEOUL (AFP) - A South Korean university hospital said Thursday it has withdrawn from a smoking research project funded by a US tobacco giant due to possible ethical problems.

Seoul National University (SNU) Hospital said its ethics panel decided Monday to abandon the research funded by Philip Morris International because it may "stir ethical problems."

The company did not clearly state how it intended to use the findings of the study, the hospital said, according to Yonhap news agency.

The research was intended to examine and compare the effects of smoking, particularly among Asians in different countries. In late June the hospital began advertising for volunteers for clinical studies.

South Korea has launched several campaigns in the last few years to reduce smoking and drinking among young people.

An anti-smoking group had earlier urged SNU and two other hospitals to withdraw from what it called unethical research.

"The World Health Organisation suggests hospitals should not receive research funds from tobacco companies," Kim Il-Soon, head of the Korean Association of Smoking and Health, was quoted by local media as saying.

Kim's group says research funded by tobacco companies is banned in major universities in Western countries.

The three hospitals would have accepted more than one million dollars from Philip Morris International to conduct the research. It was unclear if the other two would go ahead with the research.