David Warburton (tobacco)

Professor David M. Warburton is former coordinator of Associates for Research in Substance Enjoyment, later changed to Associates for Research into the Science of Enjoyment or ARISE, a tobacco industry funded front group which aimed to undermine the findings of medical research relating to the effects of smoking tobacco.

As of February 2010 Professor Warburton is a professor of psychology at the University of Reading. He was formerly head of psychopharmacology at the University of Reading.

In 2006 Reading University admitted that it knew Professor Warburton’s work had been sponsored by the tobacco companies. George Monbiot reported:

Indeed, the university itself had received over £300,000 from Arise, though “from the University’s standpoint, the source of funding for Arise has always been vague”. It revealed that “Professor Warburton and the University of Reading were in receipt of BAT research funding between 1995 and 2003.” But at no time had it questioned this funding or sought to oblige Warburton to declare his interests in academic papers. Astonishingly, it suggested that this would amount to “censorship” and “restricting academic freedom”.

The journal Psychopharmacology told me that it was unaware that Professor Warburton had been taking money from the tobacco companies. “It is an author’s responsibilty to disclose sources of funding, and widely understood that journals themselves do not expect to police this declaration.”

Publications

• David M. Warburton, ed., Pleasure, the Politics and the Reality, Wiley, John & Sons, Inc, 1994