Busted: Healthcare nonprofits are accepting millions from Big Tobacco
Smoking kills, and most health care organizations readily sound warnings.
“Don't smoke or use tobacco products,” the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society recommends.
“Stop smoking or chewing tobacco” and “limit your exposure to second hand smoke,” the American Red Cross similarly advises.
Seattle Children’s hospital tells parents: “If you smoke, try to quit smoking – this may be the right time. Think about quitting for your child’s health.”
But these three organizations rank among more than a dozen health care operations and advocacy groups that aren’t necessarily following the spirit of their own live-healthy advice.
That’s because all are recipients of 2022 charitable contributions from American tobacco giant Altria, according to an internal corporate governance document reviewed by Raw Story.
Altria did not itemize how much money it gave each health care-related charitable organization. It did, however, state it spread $44.4 million in “charitable contributions” among dozens of various organizations, including those that do not focus on health matters, during 2022.
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Many of the health-related entities listed on Altria’s contribution document did not respond to Raw Story’s multiple requests for comment about why they accepted tobacco money.
They include the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, the Alzheimer's Association of Greater Richmond (Va.), the March of Dimes South Carolina, the Dayton Children’s Hospital Foundation in Ohio and the Murray Calloway Endowment for Healthcare in Kentucky, now known as the The Foundation at Murray-Calloway County Hospital.
Seattle Children’s and the Alzheimer's Association of Massachusetts/New Hampshire acknowledged Raw Story’s requests but didn’t answer emailed questions or make a representative available for an interview.
In a statement to Raw Story, the American Red Cross explained that Altria is a member of its Red Cross Annual Disaster Giving Program and donates $500,000 annually to “ensure we are prepared to respond to disasters across the country before emergencies strike.”
The American Red Cross “depends almost entirely on charitable donations to fund our lifesaving mission to alleviate suffering in the face of emergencies,” the statement added. “With disasters becoming more frequent and intense, it will take all of us working together to help the many affected families and communities.”
At least one organization — the Sickle Cell Disease Association of America, Michigan Chapter, said it may consider divesting a $11,000 contribution it confirmed receiving from Altria.
“We will place this issue on the agenda for our next board meeting for further discussion,” Sickle Cell Disease Association of America, Michigan Chapter, CEO and Medical Director Wanda Whitten-Shurney told Raw Story.
Fundraising dollars help “improve the lives of individuals living with a disease” by providing patient education, emergency financial support, transportation assistance and food, Whitten-Shurney said. “We didn’t think about the possibility of accepting the donation might actually encourage people to smoke.”
One nonprofit hospital foundation appeared to mistakenly include Raw Story on an internal email about Raw Story’s request for comment, to which it didn’t otherwise reply.
“I will refer this to marketing. Please do not respond,” Baylor Scott & White Central Texas Foundation President Lori Luppino wrote in an email to colleagues.
The foundation supports Baylor Scott & White Health, a not-for-profit health care system in Texas with a mission to promote the “well-being of all individuals, families and communities.”
‘480,000 deaths annually’
Cigarette smoking is responsible for about one in five deaths each year in the United States — "more than 480,000 deaths annually," according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Many of these deaths are caused from cancer. The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, which received Altria money, notes that acute myeloid leukemia, a cancer of the bone marrow and blood, “is linked to exposure to tobacco smoke, which contains benzene and other cancer-causing agents.”
Altria, whose companies manufacture cigarette, cigar and smokeless tobacco brands such as Marlboro, Parliament, Virginia Slims, Black & Mild, Copenhagen and Skoal, did not respond to Raw Story’s requests for comment.
In the “vision and cultural aspiration” section of its corporate website, Altria states: “We do what’s right. We act responsibly and operate with integrity, both individually and collectively. We listen, question, and speak honestly. We collaborate to solve problems. We drive positive change by advocating for what we believe and acting on it, even when it's uncomfortable. We respect those who speak up.”
But John F. Banzhaf III, a George Washington University professor emeritus of law who’s spent his career advocating against Big Tobacco, says Altria has long used “doubt, deceit and disinformation” to promote its business interests and protect products that harm.
When it comes to Altria’s charitable giving, Banzhalf said, “they are trying to buy respectability through association … I don’t think there is any charitable motivation to their charitable giving.”
Banzhaf added that recipients of tobacco company charitable contributions should not accept them “because we know why that money is being given, and if you have accepted it, it’s a good idea to give it back.”
Beyond charitable giving, Altria is one of the nation’s largest corporate lobbying forces, having employed a team of between 50 and 100 federal lobbyists each year for the past 25 years and spending anywhere between $9 million to $16 million annually to influence policy, legislation and regulations, according to federal data compiled by nonpartisan research organization OpenSecrets.
Altria’s federal political action committee, meanwhile, had spent between $1.7 million and $2.3 million each election cycle for the past decade, according to OpenSecrets.
During the 2022 election cycle, Altria’s PAC gave $2 to Republican candidates for every $1 it gave Democratic candidates.
Among the candidates last cycle receiving a contribution of $10,000, the legal PAC maximum for a standard election cycle: Reps. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), Jim Clyburn (D-SC), Bennie Thompson (D-MS), James Comer (R-KY), Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), Patrick McHenry (R-NC), Steve Scalise (R-LA) and Elise Stefanik (R-NY).