Tobacco shares for U.K. doctors?

Press, 26 April 1984, Page 13

Tobacco shares for U.K. doctors?

NZPA-AAP London The British Medical Association is advising its members to invest in tobacco company shares through British Medical Association Services, an investment advice company. The move has been described by Dr Gabriel Scally, a senior registrar in community medicine, as being “like condemning the Mafia while taking a cut from the numbers racket.” Other doctors said they were embarrassed that the 8.M.A., which has been at the forefront of campaigns against smoking, was encouraging its members to make a profit out of smoking- , f However, an appeal for the association to stop offering such financial advice

through the company, which it runs jointly with Jardine Glanville, an international firm of investment brokers, was narrowly defeated at a meeting of the B.M.A.’s junior members’ forum. Dr Tony Keable-EUiott, treasurer of the B.M.A. and a director of 8.M.A.5., said the morality of whether to buy the shares was a matter for individual doctors. B.M.A.S. was merely offering the best investment advice available, he said.

Dr Keable-Elliott said that if the association took a stand on investing in tobacco companies, there was no limit to other possible objections — alcohol, South African gold, and the defence industries, for example. “We are living in a capitalist country,” he said.