From the Community | The Health Harms of Accepting Fossil Fuel Research Funding

As health professional students, staff, faculty, and alumni across Stanford School of Medicine, Stanford Health Care, and Stanford Children’s Health, we support establishing the strongest possible guardrails in the University’s relationship with the fossil fuel industry. Our support for these guardrails stems from our extensive historical experience in medicine with the role of unchecked industry influence on honest scientific inquiry. Climate change, driven by the burning of fossil fuels is also profoundly a crisis of health and equity. Without guardrails, the University essentially signals to the fossil fuel industry that business as usual is acceptable. Business as usual is already harming the health of our patients and communities, and stands to grow worse without a significant course correction in our emissions.

Climate change is the greatest threat to global health of the 21st century. The science is clear: we need a rapid transition off fossil fuels to avert the worst impacts of climate change and to protect our health and our future. We are already seeing more pregnant individuals experiencing premature birth due to extreme heat exposure, more children arriving with respiratory complaints from poor air quality days, more episodes of cardiovascular events like strokes and heart attacks from both heat and wildfires, and a worsening mental health crisis in part driven by climate change and understandable concern about the future. All of these health impacts are deeply inequitable. In the United States they most impact low-income communities and communities of color. Globally they most impact the developing countries which did the least to contribute to the problem.

Pollution from fossil fuels (e.g., exhaust from cars and trucks, emissions from gas stoves) is also a significant source of air pollution that is making our patients sick right now. Twenty percent of premature deaths globally - that’s 1 in 5 - are attributable to exposure to air pollution caused by combustion of fossil fuels. This pollution disproportionately affects poorer communities and Black and Hispanic communities, contributing to the long history of environmental racism in the U.S.

The fossil fuel industry continues to slow progress on climate solutions and to sow doubt about climate change. The State of California recently filed a lawsuit against Chevron, Exxon, BP, ConocoPhillips, and Shell cataloging how long industry leaders have known about the dangers of fossil fuels, how these companies suppressed this information from the public and policy-makers, and how they have historically and continue to fund misinformation campaigns to slow the transition off fossil fuels.

As the Doerr School of Sustainability seeks to fulfill its mission of developing “high-impact solutions to pressing planetary challenges”, accepting funding from fossil fuel companies will stymie rather than facilitate this aim. As health professionals, we’ve seen a very similar situation before with Big Tobacco, which heavily influenced research to achieve pro-industry results prior to the enactment of strict regulations and guardrails. When the science became clear on the links between tobacco and lung cancer, Big Tobacco engaged in a campaign to cast doubt on the science. The same is true for the pharmaceutical industry, where evidence shows that pharmaceutical industry funding of clinical researchers is strongly associated with pro-industry results as well as evidence of trial design and publication bias. Companies like Exxon followed a similar playbook. This likely occurs through multiple mechanisms, including subtle favoritism and overt “ghost management” of studies. If the Doerr School accepts funding from the fossil fuel industry without guardrails, history has taught that industry interests will prevail over the mission of the school to solve the climate crisis.

With the future existence of humanity itself on the line, we must ensure every dollar spent toward seeking solutions for the climate crisis is used in an ethical and productive manner. To protect health, we support the plan for basic guardrails forwarded by six graduate students at Stanford who have varying opinions on industry dollars but agree that rules should be in place to protect the integrity of research. At a minimum, this requires ensuring that companies who provide research dollars are adhering to credible transition plans off fossil fuels, are making the data for their transition transparent and available, and are not engaging in or funding anti-renewable or misinformation campaigns. Big Oil companies have stated that they stand ready to address the crisis. We have the ability to hold them to their promises by not providing false cover in the form of academic partnerships with elite institutions like Stanford.

If we are to solve the climate crisis and protect the health of this generation and the generations to come, we need to act with a clear moral compass on the path forward. We call on leaders at Stanford to act, understanding that the health of current and future generations is on the line. 

Signed,

Michele Barry, Senior Associate Dean for Global Health

Katherine Burke, Senior Advisor, Human & Planetary Health

Angelle Desiree LaBeaud, Professor, Department of Pediatrics

Lisa Patel, Clinical Associate Professor, Pediatrics

Wendy J. Bernstein, Adjunct Clinical Instructor, School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science

Debra L Safer, Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences

Daniel Bernstein, Associate Dean for Curriculum and Scholarship

Barbara Erny, Adjunct Clinical Associate Professor in Pulmonary, Allergy & Critical Care Medicine; Faculty Fellow, Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health

Grace Chen Yu, Program Director, Stanford-O'Connor Family Medicine Residency Director, Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine

Benjamin Belai, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences

Bridget Harrison, Faculty physician, Stanford - O’Connor Family Medicine Residency Program

Phillip M. Harter, Associate Professor (Teaching) of Emergency Medicine, Emeritus

Kajal Khanna, Clinical Associate Professor, Department of Emergency Medicine

Raziya Wang, Former Clinical Assistant Professor (Affiliated)

James Marvel, Clinical Assistant Professor, Department of Emergency Medicine

M Lauren Lalakea, Clinical Professor, Affiliated, Dept of Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery

Amanda Millstein, Stanford School of Medicine Almunus 

Carmin Powell, Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatrics 

Aarthi Chary, Clinical Associate Professor (Affiliated), Department of Medicine

Laurel McClure, Clinical faculty, Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism 

Tamiko Katsumoto, Clinical Associate Professor, Division of Immunology and Rheumatology

Tristan Nichols, Clinical Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatrics

Sara Szkola, Clinical Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatrics

Sepideh Bajestan, Clinical Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences

Catherine Reed, Adjunct Clinical Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences

Vivien Sun, Clinical Associate Professor, Department of Pediatrics

Shebani Sethi, Clinical Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences

Andrew Clayton Saunders, Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatrics

Jaclyn Wu, Stanford General Surgery Resident

Carlie Arbaugh, Stanford General Surgery Resident

Natalie Lomayesva, Stanford Psychiatry Resident 

Britt Wray, Instructor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences

Vivian Lou, MD Student

Meg Quint, Medical Student

Sebastian Pintea, Undergraduate Student, Clinical Research Assistant at Stanford School of Medicine

Margarita Ramirez Silva, MD Student

Jang Lee, Medical Student

Lucy Ma, MD/MBA Student

Marina Martinez, Medical student

Tania Fabo, MD-PhD Student

Zoe Hughes, Medical Student

Bunmi Fariyike, Medical Student

Charbel Bou-Khalil, Medical Student

Adary Zhang, MD Candidate

Anjali Gupta, MD Student

Selin Aksou, PA student 

Brandon Hwa-Lin Bergsneider, MD Student, Knight-Hennessy Scholar

Benjamin Maines, MD student, Stanford University School of Medicine

Annabelle Smith, Student

Anshal Gupta, MD Student

Omar Nunez, PA Student

Grace Jin, MD student

Neha Joshi, Clinical Scholar, Department of Pediatrics

Ilana Shumsky, Internal Medicine Physician

Kathryn Obana, Physician

Alyson Singleton, E-IPER Doctoral Candidate

Jessica Pullen, MD Student

Whitney Francis, MPH, MCP; Health Policy Fellow

Zoe Colloredo-Mansfeld, Student

Amanda Campos, Student

Jennifer Phung, PA Student

Jesse Goldstein, GIS Analyst

Melody Kosik, PA student

Bright Zhou, Stanford School of Medicine Almunus 

David Jose Florez Rodriguez, Medical Researcher

Sarah Rockwood, MD-PhD Student

Jacqueline Barnes, PA Student

Adi Xiyal Mukund, MD-PhD student

Mohamed Elzarka, Medical Student

Gina Duronio, Medical Student

Sanjeeth Rajaram, MD Student

Devon Lee, MD Student

Bianca Martin, MD Student

Noor Zanial, Medical Student

Raji Ganapathy, PA Student

Ricardo Jimenez, Medical Student 

Chenming Zheng, Medical Student

Audrey Todd, MD Student

Vaithish Velazhahan, MD Student

Aboli Ghatpande, PA student

Gabrielle Ndakwah, MSTP Student

Judith Carlson, PA Student

Laura Chang, Medical Student

Mike Mayer, MD Student

India Rogers-Shepp, Medical Student

Chelsea Nnebe, MSTP Student

Qusay Omran, MD Student

Zachary Renfro, MD student

Noelle Gorka, Medical Student

Gabriella Smith, MD Student

Marie Vasitas, Medical Student

Jayson Toweh, E-IPER Doctoral Student

Rachel Porter, PhD candidate

Soon il Higashino, Life Science Research Professional

Sohayla Eldeeb, Master's Student

Edward Maibach, Stanford University Alumnus

Jonathan Lu, MD Student