“We Must Destroy the Tobacco Control ‘Nazis'”

In response to a post by Forest’s Simon Clark that pro-smokers were losing the argument by calling the public health community “Nazis”, Davis replied:

My view is that these people must be called Nazis. Anything else is actually dishonest. They must have respectability withdrawn from them, just as they have themselves withdrawn it from others. They must be treated with the contempt with which they treat other people …. What we have is a state of war. And the sooner that people like Simon Clark recognise it, the better. We must set out not to debate with these people in a civilised manner, because that is impossible. We must set out to defeat them, and to destroy them, and destroy everything that they stand for, everywhere in the world. ²

Attack on Linda Bauld

The Letter to Linda

Davis penned a “letter to Linda Bauld” including the lines: “Those nasty emails and phone calls you’ve been getting weren’t organised or planned by anyone. I shouldn’t worry about them too much. It’s just the trailing edge of the swarm, like the zephyrs on the perimeter of a hurricane. But they’re not going to stop. They’re going to become more and more frequent. You should start worrying when bricks start getting thrown through your window, or messages daubed on your door. They won’t be planned or organised either. They’ll just happen.”
“Better still would be to leave the country .. That way you’ll be out of the country and maybe even living under a new name when your old university department gets torched, and your old colleagues are strung up from lamp posts.” ³
The article, which was also emailed to Bauld by mummybest see Anonymous Tobacco Trolls. For more on this see also:

• Letter to Linda
• Linda Bauld

Comments on Davis’ blog by others in response to this article

“You didn’t really think you could continue forever kicking people in the face with unanswered blows did you? No more hiding behind your protected academic immunity status while raining gutter level vitriol down on right decent folk. All the while you sit back reading and drooling over all of the ‘you stink’, ‘you’re filthy’ and ‘good riddance’ comments you’ve purposely incited. You love it, you cold blooded, majorly-credentialled snake … The dam is about to burst. You have no idea of how much pent up hostility is going to spill over the top when it finally breaks.”

Another posts a link to the UK Centre for Tobacco Control Studies, saying “There are more than enough Tobacco Control “researchers” who may be feeling left out of this controversy and wondering why they have not been contacted.”
Another commentator translates it to German: ” Even if most Germans never heard of Linda Bauld, we have our own “Linda Baulds” who need to read something like this. :-)”
And one says: “It does not surprise me that the quack physicians and the quack professors involved in the Stirling Uni thing are horrified. Their whole cosy universe is about to be blown apart.”
Another says simply: “Need a Rope!”

“Zealot”

This was not the first time Davis had criticised Bauld. In March 2011 he wrote:
“This report is by an anti-smoking zealot called Linda Bauld, and was no doubt conducted by a whole team of similar zealots, who were always going to find that the smoking ban had had next to no social adverse effects.” ⁴

Attacks on Deborah Arnott

Davis’s blog has attacked Deborah Arnott of ASH on more than one occasion:

“I Would Bludgeon her to Death”

Discussing a TV debate between Deborah Arnott and Dave Atherton from Freedom2Choose, Davis commented that “to be quite honest, if I’d been in Dave Atherton’s shoes, I’d have had a hard time preventing myself from strangling Arnott on the spot and on camera, or bludgeoning her to death with a microphone stand. ⁵

“Weaving Fiction” and “Hitlers”

In April 2012, Davis wrote: “And it’s why Deborah Arnott’s experience as a TV director or editor matters: as director of ASH, she’s just as much weaving a fiction as she ever was when she worked for ITV … The Deborah Arnotts (and also the Hitlers) of the world believe that Orson Welles had discovered a way of controlling and directing people”. ⁶.

“Put a Bulls-eye on her Forehead”

One comment posted in reply to Davis’ blog stated: “I just had a brainstorm regarding cigarette cases. My first instinct was to put Arnott or Glantz on the front with a bulls-eye on the forehead and then I thought – wait.” ⁷

References

The post Frank Davis appeared first on TobaccoTactics.

This page sets out the context for that objective, how the Foundation has attempted to achieve it and sets out counter-arguments to critique its approach. In summary, the Foundation has attempted to frame itself as:

• A legitimate creator of independent research
• A supporter of FCTC (including Article 5.3)
• A supporter of social justice issues (empathetic to the smoker, empathetic to farmers and LMICs)
• A supporter of measured regulation (i.e. harm reduction approach to tobacco regulation)

The Foundation has framed some of the public health community and tobacco control measures in these ways:

• Negative characterisation of the public health community
• Negative characterisation of public health measures such as taxation 

PMI’s Corporate Plan & Emergence of the Foundation for Smoke-Free World

Although on its website PMI talks about a smoke-free future,⁹ PMI’s claims of commitment to harm reduction appear to be fundamentally undermined by its own documents, including its leaked 10 year Corporate Affairs Plan¹⁰ written in 2014 (and published by Reuters in 2018).¹¹ These documents give an insight into PMI’s long-term plans before the launch of the Foundation in 2017.

These internal documents revealed that as recently as 2014, PMI was maintaining its attempts to “maximise commercial opportunities and grow market share” of combustible cigarettes.¹⁰ In 2018, academics highlighted that “PMI has made no concessions to stop promoting combustible cigarettes, and continues its activities opposing FCTC policy implementation”.¹² This concurrent activity by PMI fuels the assessment of PMI’s funding of the FSFW as a conflict of interest.

The leaked documents also reveal PMI was concerned about denormalisation (of both itself and of the tobacco industry more generally) and wanted to be seen as “part of the solution” to the harm caused by smoking, to be a “trusted and indispensable partner” and “to establish the legitimacy of tobacco companies to be part of the regulatory debate on RRPs”.¹⁰ The company outlined its plans to “find allies that cannot be ignored”,¹³ and “amplify voices of ‘harm reduction’ supporters vs ‘prohibitionists’”.¹⁰ PMI stated there was a need to use consultants as “door-openers”, and “strategists”, and to create “third party coalition building” to mobilise “an alliance of credible messengers”.¹³

Given that PMI has since pledged US$1 billion to fund the work of the FSFW in 2017,¹⁴ the Foundation may well be interpreted as the embodiment of these very plans.

Indeed, academic critiques of PMI’s involvement in tobacco harm reduction strategies have been made in 2018. Some have argued that PMI is using harm reduction arguments as a way to renormalise both itself and the wider industry, “using strategies that they have used for decades to fracture tobacco control and promote tobacco ‘harm reduction’ in an attempt to renormalize tobacco use” and “undermine government’s tobacco regulatory efforts”.¹⁵ It has been suggested that the Foundation is “an apparent element of PMI’s plan to expand the market for its HTP tobacco products as well as rehabilitate the company’s reputation”.¹⁵ Others have suggested that “the FSFW may function operationally to advance and amplify tobacco industry messaging and potentially exacerbate conflicts within public health”, and as a “ploy to boost PMI’s corporate image and possibly produce misleading science, while PMI continues to attack effective tobacco control policies and profit from cigarette sales”.¹²

In yet another attempt to boost its own image, the Foundation claimed an affiliation with the goals of the Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (SEATCA) and the Tobacco Control Research Group (TCRG) in the Frequently-Asked Questions section of its website on its Tobacco Transformation Index. It stated that as FSFW:¹⁶

“shares common goals with organizations such as Tobacco Tactics and the Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance, vocal critics of the Foundation and its work, we welcome opening a constructive dialogue with their leadership toward achieving the common goal – improving global health by ending smoking in this generation”.

In January 2020, SEATCA and TCRG wrote an open letter to Derek Yach, Director of the Foundation, to request that this statement be removed. In their letter, Ulysses Dorotheo, SEATCA Executive Director, and Professor Anna Gilmore of the TCRG denounced this “wrongful association with and by FSFW” and requested that the Foundation “cease and desist” from associating with SEATCA and Tobacco Tactics and remove both organisations’ names from its website.¹⁷ You can read the full letter here.

To read a more detailed article on PMI’s 10 year plan and the subsequent establishment of the FSFW, see: Big Tobacco is funding the anti-smoking lobby but leaked documents reveal the real reason why. 

Framing Itself, Its Science and those Who Oppose It

The following section provide examples of the above and presents some counter evidence which questions the Foundation’s characterisations of itself and others. This analysis does not represent an exhaustive list of the arguments the Foundation has made, nor an exhaustive list of counter-arguments.

Certificate of Incorporation

The Foundation’s purpose is to support “research and projects regarding alternatives to cigarettes and other combustible products and how best to achieve a smoke-free world and advance the field of tobacco harm reduction”.¹⁸ 

McCabe Centre critique: This leaves no capacity for the Foundation to focus on other tobacco control measures such as “prevention of uptake or cessation of use without replacement by other products”.¹⁹

PMI Pledge Agreement with the Foundation

PMI are only obliged to continue to fund the Foundation if it has not “rescinded, amended or modified the Foundation’s Purpose” and has worked “exclusively in accordance with the Foundation’s purpose”.²⁰

McCabe Centre critique: “In other words, the cost of change – for example to focus on ending smoking other than through alternative products/harm reduction…would be the US960 million” pledged to the Foundation by PMI (or at least its outstanding balance). The pledged amount is therefore tied to the Foundation exclusively working on PMI-specified research priorities.¹⁹

Bylaws

“The Certificate of Incorporation and these Bylaws may be amended or repealed and new Certificate of Incorporation or Bylaws may be adopted upon the affirmative vote of two-thirds (⅔) of the Directors then serving entitled to vote”.²¹

McCabe Centre critique: It is possible for the Foundation to change its research priorities (at the cost of the significant funding pledged from PMI), but only if two-thirds of the Board of Directors backed a decision to do so. This board “will likely be a group inherently unrepresentative of the fields of tobacco control/public health,* as it is hard to imagine that it will include many (or any) individuals unsympathetic to the arrangement Yach has struck with Philip Morris”.¹⁹ A majority vote to change the Foundation’s research priorities is therefore unlikely.

* On 1 February 2018 the Foundation announced its Board of Directors, which, at that time, included individuals (Lisa Gable, Michael Sagner, and Zoe Feldman) promoting collaboration with industry.²²

The Foundation frames itself as…

1. A legitimate creator of independent research

Claim: The Foundation repeatedly asserts that it acts independently from the tobacco industry, for example:

• In October 2017, Derek Yach, the President of the Foundation assured readers that there were “stringent safeguards in place to assure the tobacco industry has zero influence over the Foundation’s agenda or research;”²³
• Yach went on to state that “The Foundation is an independent legal entity separate and distinct from the tobacco industry, with independent governance, a peer-reviewed research agenda and strict protections against conflict of interest;” ²⁴ 

Counter evidence: A McCabe Centre analysis of the Foundation’s constitutive documents outlined here has highlighted several ways in which it appears that PMI would be able to influence the Foundation’s research agenda and practice.¹⁹

Claim: The Foundation used Cohen et al.’s criteria which stipulate the circumstances under which industry-funded models of research may be appropriate,²⁵ stating that “The Foundation has put those principles and criteria into practice”²⁶²⁷

Counter evidence: However, Cohen et al. themselves have since been clear that the Foundation does not meet the criteria as set out in their paper, “the claim…the Foundation addresses their eight criteria…is incorrect in several instances”, concluding that “due to lack of independence, the potential for conflicts of interest, and clear public relations gains, the Foundation does not represent a tobacco industry-supported funding model that should be acceptable to the research community” ²⁸

The Foundation’s very first research output, the “State of Smoking” study was conducted by a public relations firm, Kantar, which has been criticised for its history of working with the tobacco industry whilst simultaneous working for governments and health charities. ²⁹

Claim: The Foundation attempted to establish itself as a legitimate tobacco control organisation, through its statement in support of Bloomberg’s Philanthropies 2018 STOP initiative:³⁰

“Because of the tobacco industry’s decades of deception, the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World wholeheartedly supports the Bloomberg Foundation’s Stopping Tobacco Organizations and Products (STOP) campaign. We applaud the effort to monitor for public deception and “junk science” designed to cover up or mislead the public about the dangers of smoking or alternative products. We encourage independent review of all tobacco control science – including our own—and we encourage all tobacco control researchers to make their raw research data publicly available for secondary analyses, as the Foundation requires of its researchers”. 

Counter evidence: However, Kelly Henning from Bloomberg Philanthropies made it clear that the new global tobacco industry watchdog was needed exactly because of organisations such as the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World:³¹

“What we face over and over again is this ceaseless pushback by the very well-funded tobacco industry against our work. Most recently, Philip Morris’s newly funded Foundation for a Smoke-Free World, announced not too many months ago, demonstrated how the tobacco industry uses every imaginable tactic to push back. That announcement made us stop and think that maybe there is more we should be doing to try to counter the tobacco industry’s interference with tobacco control. That was really what led Bloomberg Philanthropies to launch this effort”.

Claim: The Foundation has likened itself to the Truth Initiative:
“The Foundation’s bylaws, certificate of incorporation and funding agreement are unprecedentedly rigid and establish the Foundation as a completely independent organization, akin to the Legacy Foundation (now Truth Initiative)”.³²

Counter evidence: The Truth Initiative is a non-profit tobacco control organisation which was established as part of the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement between the tobacco industry and US states.³³
As such, its funding came from successful litigation against the tobacco industry.³⁴

In contrast, Philip Morris was instrumental in developing the Foundation along with Derek Yach (the Foundation “arose out of extended discussions with Philip Morris International”) and in the middle of 2018 was its sole funder.³⁵

Claim: In 2018, the Foundation outlined its plan to fund research centres:

• “Through the support of Centers of Excellence for science-based tobacco control research at academic centers around the world, the Foundation aims to develop the next generation of leaders and institutions to accelerate the end of smoking.³⁶
• And in an open letter from January 2018, Yach stated that “the Foundation shares your enthusiasm for a “centres-of-excellence” approach to our grant making. We anticipate the bulk of our funding will support such centres”.²⁶ 

Counter evidence: The tobacco industry has a history of founding research centres within universities, such as the PMI-funded Duke Center for Nicotine and Smoking Cessation Research (CNSCR) at Duke University in North Carolina and the Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility at the University of Nottingham funded by British American Tobacco.³⁷

The tobacco industry has also created non-university-affiliated research groups in efforts to build reputability around industry-funded science, such as the Council for Tobacco Research, which was formed in 1954 by US tobacco companies in an attempt to maintain uncertainty around the health harms caused by smoking.³⁸

2. As a supporter of the FCTC

Claim: The Foundation has framed itself as a supporter of (and indeed, champion of) the WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control:

• In October 2017, Yach stated “I was quite surprised when the World Health Organization (WHO) recently issued a statement mischaracterizing the mission of the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World, and wrongly suggesting the Foundation doesn’t comply with Article 5.3 of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). As someone deeply involved in the development of the FCTC as a cabinet director and executive director at WHO, I know a bit about the FCTC. And it is clear the goals and objectives of the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World are squarely in line with the FCTC and especially Article 5.3”.²⁴
• In the same blog post, Yach continued “Furthermore, the Foundation plans to eventually apply for WHO Non-State Actor designation as a philanthropic foundation. The Foundation and WHO have a shared objective – to rid the world of cigarettes and dramatically reduce smoking-related disease and death”.²⁴

In January 2018, Ehsan Latif (a key member of the leadership team at the Foundation) claimed that the Foundation “will support the FCTC by filling the gaps in the FCTC that have received inadequate attention or funding” and outlined these as Article 14 (cessation support), Article 17 (supporting tobacco farmers) and Article 18 (protect the environment) among others.³⁹

Counter evidence: Although the Foundation purports to be a supporter of the FCTC, its funding is provided by Philip Morris International which, according to a 2017 Reuters report, is “running a secretive campaign to block or weaken treaty provisions that save millions of lives by curbing tobacco use” and who describe the FCTC as a “regulatory runaway train” driven by “anti-tobacco extremists.”.⁴⁰

The Reuters report argues that specifically, PMI is attempting to undermine Articles 13, 15, 16, and importantly Article 5.3 which outlines the necessity for tobacco control research to be conducted away from the undue influence of the tobacco industry.⁴⁰
In September 2017, the WHO outlined that given that Article 5.3 of the FCTC “obliges Parties to act to protect public health policies from commercial and other vested interests of the tobacco industry…that…Governments should not accept financial or other contributions from the tobacco industry or those working to further its interests, such as this Foundation”.⁴¹

The WHO continued by saying that “there are many unanswered questions about tobacco harm reduction, but the research needed to answer these questions should not be funded by tobacco companies….when it comes to the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World, there are a number of clear conflicts of interest involved with a tobacco company funding a purported health foundation, particularly if it promotes sale of tobacco and other products found in that company’s brand portfolio. WHO will not partner with the Foundation. Governments should not partner with the Foundation and the public health community should follow this lead”.⁴¹

Further, research suggests that the tobacco industry has used the idea of having common goals with the public health community to its advantage. For example, the concept of harm reduction has been used to “facilitate access to, and dialogue with scientists, public health experts, and policymakers, presenting themselves as ‘partners, rather than adversaries’ who share a common goal”.⁴²

3. As a supporter of social justice

Claim: In several of its blog posts the Foundation emphasises that it is on the side of the smoker:

• “Our focus is on the smoker – not the concept of the “smoker”, but on the individual. We believe the experience of smoking is multifaceted and deeply personal. Indeed, the State of Smoking Survey findings reinforce our view that smoking is deeply integrated into most smokers’ daily lives, so quitting means more than just giving up cigarettes” ⁴³
• “We can easily forget what tobacco control is about when we only focus on data and laws. What matters is the real people, struggling every day. From a smoker trying to quit a habit they know is going to harm them, or a farmer wondering where their next pay check will come from” ⁴⁴
• Further, Yach uses quotes from recently published book ‘Natural Causes’ (Ehrenreich, 2018) to state that “to be a smoker is to be a pariah” and “as more affluent people gave up the habit, the war on smoking…began to look like a war against the working class” and that smoking could be seen as “a kind of self-nurturance” ⁴⁵

Counter evidence: Tobacco kills more than 7 million people per year, yet, industry and industry-funded bodies have long since portrayed themselves on the side of the smoker.

For example, the tobacco industry has marketed cigarettes to marginalised groups as a kind of empowerment (for example, marketing menthol cigarettes to African American men “framing blacks’ dignity with their right to consume products and services of quality and creating intersecting agendas by linking smoking to meanings of fairness and upward mobility”⁴⁶ and cigarettes conceptualised as symbols of emancipation and “‘torches of freedom”’ for women.⁴⁷)
The tobacco industry is known to use front groups to befriend smokers – one tobacco-industry front group FOREST calls itself the “‘voice and friend of the smoker”.’ ⁴⁸

However, as the WHO pointed out in 2017, “PMI engages in large scale lobbying and prolonged and expensive litigation against evidence-based tobacco control policies such as those found in the WHO FCTC and WHO’s MPOWER tobacco control, which assists in implementation of the WHO FCTC. For example, just last year PMI lost a six year investment treaty arbitration with Uruguay, in which the company spent approximately US$ 24 million to oppose large graphic health warnings and a ban on misleading packaging in a country with fewer than four million inhabitants.”.⁴¹

Such aggressive tactics seem at odds with the idea of a PMI-funded Foundation being on the side of the smoker.

Claim: In several of its blog posts, the Foundation emphasises that it is on the side of the tobacco farmer, and that one of its priorities is to ensure the economic security of low- and middle-income countries:

• “The issues facing the smallholder farmer are complex and intertwined. At the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World, we will aim to solve those issues with a holistic approach that puts the farmer first. A new deal is needed for the smallholder tobacco farmer. Here our journey begins putting the farmer first” ⁴⁹
• “Consequently, the additional effect of losing significant foreign exchange earnings from export sales of tobacco will virtually cripple countries like Malawi, which relies on tobacco exports for 81% of its foreign exchange earnings.”.⁴⁹.
• In March 2018, the Foundation launched its Agricultural Transformation Initiative in Malawi ⁵⁰

Counter evidence: In the past the tobacco industry has created front groups, (such as the International Tobacco Growers Association) that appear to represent the needs of worldwide tobacco growers, but are in fact intended to be industry lobbying groups.
Tobacco companies such as BAT are members of the Child Labour in Tobacco Growing Foundation (ECLT), however, research suggests that tobacco industry involvement in trying to tackle child labour only supports their corporate social responsibility agendas, rather than affecting any real change, and appears to be used to distract public attention away from the low wages and low tobacco prices that the industry pays in countries such as Malawi.⁵¹

4. As a supporter of measured (rather than “onerous”) regulation

Claim: The Foundation also frames itself as a supporter of reasonable levels of regulation:

• In a blog in April 2018, David Janazzo wrote: “Regulatory regimes…must be properly aligned with the risk/benefit trade-off of combustible and other products. We believe this is particularly important for the poor smoker. Therefore, we support policies that tax combustible cigarettes at substantially higher rates than lower risk products”).⁵²
• In the same blog post, Janazzo also argued that ‘light-touch’ regulation means industry can flourish, which in turn means that consumers are the ’winners’.⁵³
• Janazzo went on to say that “pricing regimes not reflective of the risk profile, as well as negative perception and poor knowledge of product benefits versus risks based on the science, could hamper consumer confidence and thereby adoption at this stage. Bottom line, more research is needed quickly such that…regulators can place the appropriate protections around the products based on relative risk”.⁵³

Counter evidence: Here, the main message appears to be that ‘lower-risk products’ should be regulated less heavily than combustible cigarettes, and that minimal regulation is favourable for all. In the past, the tobacco industry has worked to frame itself as a supporter of measured regulation and has often lobbied for “pre-emptive legislation that protects its own interests”⁵⁴

The Foundation’s statements echo PMI’s own views on a ‘common-sense approach’ to regulation. On PMI’s website they state that ‘sensible, risk-based regulation of smoke-free products, combined with further restrictions on cigarettes, can help address the harm caused by smoking more effectively – and faster – than plain packaging and other traditional regulatory measures”⁵⁵

Claim: The Foundation also appears to frame itself as a knowledge broker, in order to support cross-industry drives for regulatory change:

“The Foundation is ready to foster a discussion on this…using, rather than banning technology…and draw upon and help bring leaders from oil, gas, transportation and agriculture to give their views about how some future regulatory systems could more rapidly support innovation and detect potential threats”.⁴⁴ 

Counter evidence: The tobacco industry, in the past, has been adept at recruiting other industries (often through the use of third-party groups, such as the Risk Assessment Forum) to gain support for changes to regulatory architectures. For example:

• British American Tobacco worked with the chemicals, fossil fuels and pharmaceuticals industry to create and implement industry-friendly standards of evidence in policymaking in the EU, under the banner of ‘reducing red tape’ within the ‘Better Regulation’ agenda. ⁵⁶
• PMI worked in the US to establish and implement industry-friendly standards of evidence around assessing health risks (e.g. through the Data Quality Act in the US and “‘good epidemiology”’ in the EU).³⁸

Ways the Foundation frames the public health community and public health measures

1. Negative characterisation of the public health community

Claim: The Foundation uses several arguments to negatively frame those who question its legitimacy and the effectiveness of harm reduction technology:

• Framing those who oppose the Foundation as also opposing public health goals: “there are organizations who, rather than joining forces to tackle this major health crisis in a collaborative, productive spirit, are choosing to oppose the Foundation and its goal of helping smokers quit by advancing the science of tobacco control. This opposition runs counter to the goals of many of these institutions and their leading scientists: to advance public health…” ³²
• Framing those who oppose the Foundation as inhibiting free speech: ””Despite what we believe are reasonable measures to assure our independence, WHO’s FCTC secretariat issued a premature view that we are not independent and that there is little evidence to support harm reduction. On that basis, they recommend parties to the FCTC not interact or engage with us. Their statement has been used to justify additional measures, including refusing WHO health and medical journals to publish work by FSFW-supported scientists, and banning those who are associated with the Foundation from attending the 2018 World Conference on Tobacco or Health being held in my home city of Cape Town. WHO is based in Geneva..”. ⁴⁴
• Framing those who do not embrace tobacco harm reduction strategies as opponents of technological progress: “disruptive technology disrupts the status quo and stirs deep emotions that can undermine progress if poorly managed…every time a technology disruption occurs, people get upset: the Luddites of the 18th century, reactions to GMOs, concerns about driverless cars. What happens first is fear. “Ban it” is the natural response”.⁴⁴
• Framing early refusals to work with the Foundation as knee-jerk emotional responses: “Most of the disruption I’m seeing in the early phase is coming from the traditional tobacco control core. Deep emotional issues related to even considering engagement with the tobacco industry…have led to early reactions. These reactions are compounded by WHO’s views on excluding harm reduction from tobacco control”.⁴⁴

Counter evidence: The tobacco industry often attempts to shift arguments towards more emotive ones such as framing public health advocates as the enemy of industry and free enterprise, and denigrating members of the tobacco control community.

For example, attempts to discredit non-industry scientists who produce unfavourable research have been documented, such as academics being professionally attacked for speaking up about second-hand smoke⁵⁷ and others labelled ‘scientific extremists.⁵⁸

2. Negative characterisation of public health measures other than harm reduction strategies

Claim: The Foundation appears to frame policy interventions which restrict the activity of the tobacco industry and act at a whole population level as ineffective:⁵⁹

“we have created smoke-free environments, mandated bigger health warnings, made cigarettes more expensive, and restricted advertising and marketing. Yet still, one billion people continue to smoke … there seems to be a disconnect between the development of policy and the benefit many smokers receive from policy”

Counter evidence: The tobacco control measures that the Foundation cites as ineffective here (smoke-free environments, health warnings, regulations on advertising, higher taxes) are known to be effective ⁶⁰

Also, the Foundation fails to acknowledge here that the tobacco industry have actively and aggressively fought against such policy interventions. These factors appear to explain why, of the estimated 8.3 million tobacco-related deaths occurring by 2030, 6.8 million will be in low- and middle-income countries (where the tobacco industry is successfully fighting tobacco control policies). ⁶¹

Claim: The Foundation also appears to frame taxes on tobacco products as discriminatory:

“Cigarette taxes are regressive…a recent article regarding sin taxes describes them as designed to punish the poor… we argue that the effectiveness of incremental tax increases in many cases will likely be subject to diminishing marginal returns – with the costs being borne unfairly by the poorest among us”.⁶²

Counter evidence: The article referenced by the Foundation in this blog post⁶³ was written by Christopher Snowdon, member of the tobacco industry-funded, right-wing think tank, the Institute of Economic Affairs.

This is an example of the Foundation amplifying tobacco industry-funded voices without being transparent about their industry ties.
Although the Foundation posits that taxes are discriminatory, tobacco itself is a health inequality issue, and socioeconomic inequities in tobacco consumption in Europe, for example, are “large and widening”.⁶⁴

Further, it appears that the tobacco industry has actually purposefully targeted working class young adults, seeing them as a “critical market segment to promote growth”⁶⁵

An increase in taxes is a proven method for reducing harms associated with tobacco use since “tobacco tax increases are the most effective and inexpensive way of reducing tobacco smoking prevalence, consumption initiation and inequalities in smoking”.⁶⁶ 

TobaccoTactics Resources

• Foundation for a Smoke-Free World
• Philip Morris International
• Influencing Science
• Influencing Science: Funding Scientists

TCRG Research Blog

• The Philip Morris-funded Foundation for a Smoke-Free World: tax return sheds light on funding activities, T.Legg, S.Peeters, P.Chamberlain, A.Gilmore, The Lancet, 6 June 2019
• Big Tobacco is funding the anti-smoking lobby but leaked documents reveal the real reason why, A. Rowell, The Conversation, 13 March 2018

Relevant Links

• Read the STOP report on PMI and the Foundation: Addiction At Any Cost: The Truth About Philip Morris International FSFW
• Foundation for a Smoke-Free World homepage

References

The post Foundation for a Smoke-Free World: How it Frames Itself appeared first on TobaccoTactics.

Blogging Snus

Haigh is very active online, he signs his postings with this listing:

• http://snusuk.co.uk
• http://snusify.com
• http://twitter.com/snusify
• http://facebook.com/snusifycom

His Twitter account and his Facebook page are mostly used to promote his blog, Snusify.com, while SnusUK.co.uk is an online seller of snus.
Haigh’s blog Snusify.com is a mix of enthusiastic reviews promoting various brands of snus, comments from other snus users sharing experiences, and calls to lobby against the EU ban on snus. On occasion this involves denigrating the tobacco control community. See FOI: University of Bath.
His blog and Facebook page demonstrate that Haigh is notified by Swedish Match when a new product is due to be launched. Haigh blogs about forthcoming products, which effectively aids Swedish Match marketing of their new products.⁶⁷

Promoting Snus on YouTube

Haigh has launched his own YouTube channel The Snusifier Speaks to share product reviews and other pro-snus related content with the world. Between summer 2009 and spring 2012 he put more than 40 videos online.⁶⁸
A February 2010 video shows that “by recommendation of Northerner”, Skruf Snus AB (owned by Imperial Tobacco) gifted Haigh two cans of snus “to be one of the first people in the world to try the new snus”.⁶⁹
More recently, Haigh’s reviews increasingly focus on Swedish Match snus brands. When Haigh has reviewed snus from Swedish Match, he has credited either the company or Northerner for providing him with the tobacco.
In another 2010 video, Haigh said he got the snus from the Northerner, but also mentioned that Markus Ersmark from Swedish Match had emailed him a few weeks before to let him know this snus was coming out.⁷⁰ In some reviews he uses official Swedish Match promotional material.⁷¹

Hospitality of Swedish Match

One of Haigh’s videos reports how he and a couple of American snus bloggers were hosted by Swedish Match and taken around Stockholm in May 2011. In the accompanying text, Haigh wrote: “Thanks to Swedish Match for making this trip happen.”⁷²
The other three visitors were from SnusCentral.com in the United States, and did not know Haigh beforehand according to their report of the trip. ‘Tim/Snusify was a virtual unknown to me but Mick, Julls, Feck and their new friend Snusify in Stockholm quickly fit into the group.⁷³
Their host was Markus Ersmark, online sales manager for Swedish Match (as of 1 March 2012 he works for the joint venture between PMI and Swedish Match). The snusbloggers toured the company’s headquarters, factories and visited the Tobacco and Match Museum. They were entertained with blind snus tasting and allowed to blend their own mix.

When we first arrived at the Gothenburg factory we were asked to sign a confidentiality agreement. Nothing personal mind you; just so we would not be tempted to blab about things we saw that we maybe shouldn’t have seen.⁷³

Meeting Swedish Match Public Affairs and EU Lobbyists

Haigh’s Facebook page shows that he has had several meetings with Swedish Match Public Affairs people over the past two years.

• In June 2010 he met with Cecilia Kindstrand-Isaksson, Director Group Public Affairs and with Joakim Blom, also from Swedish Match. Both are active members of the lobby group European Smokeless Tobacco Council (ESTOC), Kindstrand-Isaksson in the tax working group and Blom in the media group.⁷⁴ The Facebook entry indicates that they discussed how to make some “noise” in the upcoming review of the legislation in order to get the sales ban on snus lifted. ⁷⁵

• In September 2011, Haigh had a similar meeting with Rupini Bergström from Swedish Match (and current chairman of ESTOC’s media working group), and ESTOC’s Secretary General Inge Delfosse.⁷⁴ Again, the issue was the current state of the Tobacco Products Directive. Haigh got paid in kind, and called it ‘a fun day.’ ⁷⁶

Involved in Promotion of Online Sale of Snus

Apart from promoting Northerner Scandinavia, Haigh has also encouraged snus users to buy snus online from website SnusUK.co.uk, for example on YouTube in May 2010⁷⁷, and more recently on his blog.⁷⁸ In November 2011, Haigh posted this message on his blog, which was to give the impression that he had only just discovered SnusUK.co.uk.

Finally there is a new supplier from Sweden that is bringing Snus and American Smokeless Tobacco to the UK and the rest of the EU. In fact they ship all over the world. They are SnusUK.

I have ordered from them now a few times and they are cheap and the shipping is fast. A few days for snus to arrive from Sweden and about 10 days for American Tobacco. (…)

I have asked them to sponsor this site so lets see what they say.⁷⁹

However, Haigh had been promoting SnusUK well before that date.⁷⁷
There are further connections too. The about us section of SnusUK⁸⁰ claims that Haigh founded the online shop:

I discovered Swedish Snus a few years ago and was amazed to finally find a great alternative to smoking cigarettes. I then started blogging about this wonderful tobacco. Since then I have visited the Snus factories in Gothenburg, Sweden and got to know the major snus manufacturers. I learned all about how it is made and the stringent quality tests the tobacco production uses. I really believe it is the best way to use tobacco.

So it seemed natural to start SnusUK and supply this high quality smokeless tobacco known as Snus to the rest of the world. (…)

Tim

Founder of Snus UK

(original capitalisation)

SnusUK.co.uk is nevertheless registered to Northerner Scandinavia AB⁸¹ founded by Frank Svandal in 1998. Northerner is a Swedish company that owns more than 60 websites selling snus⁸², which all have the same basic structure in layout.
The SnusUK website also has a Dutch version of the about us section. The text on the Dutch page, however, is about ‘Frank’ (Svandal) as the founder of Swedish-snus.com. This editorial mistake confirms that SnusUK is one of the many websites in the Northerner Scandinavia network.⁸³

Started the Targeting of Researchers at the University of Bath

In January 2012, the BMJ journal Tobacco Control published a paper exposing the on line sale of snus, defying the EU bans on such sales. The paper was authored by two members of the Tobacco Control Research Group at the University of Bath. The paper threatened to put a stop to snus sales to European countries over the internet, much to the disdain of snus users. The page FOI: University of Bath explains how disgruntled users started targeting the authors. Abusive messages on the forum were followed by several intimidating phone calls as well as Freedom of Information requests into the funding of the research.
It was Tim Haigh who first flagged the snus paper at his own blog, Snusify.com. He ended his message with “I would suggest if you feel strongly to send your feedback and opinions to Silvee Peeters at Bath University” (linking it to her Bath email address and misspelling her name).⁸⁴

Haigh also informed the snus community via Snuson.com, an online forum for snus users. He posted a similar message and a link to his blog, stating that the authors provided the “usual one sided view against snus with a feeling of venom”. Haigh further wrote that

as a result of this Northerner informed me that from February 6th 2012 they will not longer ship snus from Sweden to the EU. This includes all their sister sites such as snusuk etc.⁸⁵

At his initial blog posting, Haigh provided a screengrab and a downloadable version of the Tobacco Control article (the file was called TobaccoNazi.pdf as is visible in this screen grab):

Providing a full copy of the article seems to be in contravention of the BMJ Group’s copyright rules. Access to BMJ content on line is available either through academic libraries with a subscription or by purchasing a specific article. Both ways of access are restricted. Use should only be for research purposes and licenses do not allow users to make articles available to others by posting on line or by attaching PDF copies.⁸⁶

The BMJ has thus asked Haigh to take down the paper. In April 2012, Haigh reported on his facebook blog that the BMJ had been in touch with him over this contravension.

Linking to Chris Snowdon

More recently, Haigh linked up with pro-smoking blogger Chris Snowdon, campaigning against another part of the EU regulation of tobacco use.
Until Spring 2012, snus producer Swedish Match (SM) focused on lobbying the EU to lift the ban on snus sales in Europe. But the EU also plans to prohibit certain ingredients in all tobacco products, and that includes snus. And since most snus brands contain ingredients like vanilla,
suddenly there is a threat that Swedish snus will become illegal in Sweden. Rupini Bergström, the head of public affairs at SM and active member of ESTOC (who met with Haigh as detailed above started a twitter campaign ⁸⁷, and pro-smoking blogger Chris Snowdon joined forces by writing a long blog story called “More prohibition?”⁸⁸ as well as an article in Spiked entitled Old moralism in new packaging⁸⁹ Haigh wrote about it too, pointing at Snowdon’s blog.⁹⁰

References

The post Tim Haigh appeared first on TobaccoTactics.

Background

Project Sunrise was a decade-long project undertaken by Philip Morris, intended to lead to the “dawn of a new day” for the tobacco giant in the 1990s when the company was under attack from various public health bodies and on legal fronts.

Divide and Rule

Having studied 600 internal industry documents about the project, researchers concluded that Philip Morris’ intention was “explicitly to divide and conquer the tobacco control movement by forming relationships with what it considered ‘moderate’ tobacco control individuals and organisations.”⁹¹
One 1996 “Tipping the Scales of Justice” Philip Morris document specifically outlined how the company should “drive a wedge between anti-groups”:

• Form alliances with groups that support federal legislation on youth smoking;
• Foster debate that divides anti groups over issue of youth smoking vs; prohibition” ⁹²

A Four Part Strategy Against the Antis

Build Bridges, Undermine Funding

Joshua Slavitt, the policy issues director in PM’s issues management department, also outlined a four part campaign “to successfully counter the anti-tobacco industry” or ATI as he called it:

*Intensify research on the composition, objectives and initiatives of the anti-tobacco industry — build on existing information and establish new channels of information;

* Build relationships with potentially moderate anti-tobacco groups to exacerbate conflicts within the movement and define extremists;

* Diminish funding sources available to the ATI;

* Weaken credibility of anti-tobacco groups and individuals (with an emphasis on their leadership)

Regarding co-option of the industry’s critics, Slavitt argued the company needed to:

“Form relationships with anti-tobacco groups that are the most amenable to this company’s positions in order to enhance our credibility by demonstrating our ability to seek realistic solutions on tobacco-related issues. In addition, build relationships with so-called “moderate” anti-tobacco groups in order to disrupt the ATI’s cohesion and create opportunities to focus attention on prohibitionists. This strategy should not be viewed as a monolithic effort. Instead, the company should seek out opportunities on a case-by-case basis.”

Using FOIs as a Legal Tool Against the Tobacco Control Movement

On diminishing funding, Slavitt recommended several “legal options” that Philip Morris should pursue. One included establishing “a coalition of watch-dog groups, conservative media and non-traditional allies to publicize evidence of abuses of federal and state statutes” as well as considering “the availability of FOIA’s, congressional interventions and other public document collection opportunities”

The Slippery Slope

Finally Slavitt recommended that Philip Morris should use the so-called “slippery slope” argument to prove the “extremism” of the tobacco control movement. “Demonstrate extremism of health prevention movement — tobacco products, then alcohol, then red meat and other products,” he wrote. ⁹³

“Paint Antis As Extremists”

Slavitt’s recommendation to paint the tobacco control movement as extreme is nothing new. The tobacco industry has deliberately tried to position itself as the rational voice in the smoking debate, whilst painting the tobacco control movement as extremists.
For example, in 1991, the US Tobacco Institute recommended that the industry should be “Seizing the political center and forcing the anti-smokers to an extreme” as well as “Bait anti-tobacco forces to criticize industry efforts. Focus media attention on antis’ extremism”. ⁹⁴

The same tactic was adopted by Project Sunrise. Researchers who have studied the Project Sunrise documents argue that “Philip Morris sought to strip some tobacco control advocates – those who rejected its offer of partnership – of public credibility by characterising them as extremists”.

The documents reveal that in the 1996 “Tipping the Scales of Justice” Philip Morris document recommended that on the one hand the tobacco giant undertake “Coalition Building/Ally Development” that included “Building Broad Base of Support” and “educating and activating allies”. And on the other hand, that tobacco control organisations – or “antis” – drew their strength from ‘‘their funding, their credibility in public opinion, and their unity.” The document went on to say:
“Our primary strategies focus on impacting each of the three sources of strength:

• find ways to diminish funding for antis’ activities
• weaken the credibility of the antis
• drive a wedge between various anti groups.

One key way Philip Morris recommended to attack the credibility was to:

• “Position antis as extremists” ⁹⁵

References

The post Project Sunrise appeared first on TobaccoTactics.

On 22 January 2012, the journal Tobacco Control published an article entitled ‘How online sales and promotion of snus in the European Union (EU) contravenes current legislation.’⁹⁶ Authored by researchers from the Tobacco Control Research Group at the University of Bath, the article highlighted that snus was being sold illegally across the EU via the Internet, contravening three EU Directives and Swedish national legislation.

To explain: Snus is a traditional Scandinavian Smokeless Tobacco product, predominantly used in Sweden where it is regulated under the Swedish Food Act. There are EU-wide bans on the sale of snus outside Sweden and on the online promotion of tobacco products. However, as this paper showed, there is relatively little control on either the online sale or promotion of snus across Europe. The European Ban on snus has also been challenged in the past – in 2004 by Swedish Match and one of its suppliers – without success. (See: Snus: EU Ban on Snus Sales)

The Tobacco Control article generated a heated reaction from snus users, upset that their usual channels for acquiring snus could be threatened. The online reaction included threats to the authors as well as Freedom of Information requests to the University of Bath. These came from same person.

Swedish Match Demands Evidence

The Tobacco Control Journal uploaded the article on Saturday 21 January 2012. On the following Monday, even before the University of Bath had issued a press release about the snus article,⁹⁷ one of the authors received a phone call from Swedish Match. Patrik Hildingsson, its Vice President for Public Affairs, had been alerted by an early news item at the website of Swedish NGO TobaksFakta⁹⁸ and requested a copy of the article.
In a subsequent email on the same day – 23 January – he said he was “interested in those parts were you conclude directly or indirectly any wrongdoings by Swedish Match”.⁹⁹ Hildingsson was advised that the paper demonstrated that a Swedish Match website promoted illegal sales of snus. The website in question is called GeneralSnus.com and it advertises the company’s premium snus brand General. GeneralSnus links directly to several websites operated by the top four vendors of snus that sell snus illegally to non-Swedish EU citizens.¹⁰⁰ The official domain name registration shows that GeneralSnus is owned by Swedish Match.¹⁰¹

Snus User Outrage

Within a few days, the news about the Tobacco Control paper reached the snus community. The first person to flag the article on illegal snus sales was Tim Haigh, a British blogger on snus issues. On 30 January 2012, he wrote about it on his own blog, snusify.com, and posted a similar message on snuson.com, an online forum for snus users, stating that the authors provided the “usual one sided view against snus with a feeling of venom”.⁸⁵ Haigh further claimed that Northerner, the biggest online snus retailer, had stopped selling snus from Sweden to EU countries in response to the article, and suggested snus could still be bought from the United States, or by making a “snus run” to Sweden.¹⁰²
On his blog Haigh provides a screen grab and a downloadable version of the Tobacco Control article (the file conveniently called TobaccoNazi.pdf). This would appear to contravene the copyright rules of the journal’s publisher, the BMJ Group. Indeed in April 2012, Haigh reported on his facebook blog that the BMJ had been in touch with him over this contravention.

By his own admission, Haigh has close contacts to Swedish Match and Northerner. As a regular product reviewer for Swedish Match, he maintains his own YouTube channel reporting his work. The credits of his reviews state that the products were provided by Swedish Match or the Northerner.¹⁰³ Another video reports how he was hosted by Swedish Match and taken around Stockholm in May 2011.¹⁰⁴ His Facebook page shows that he has had meetings with Public Affairs people from Swedish Match and representatives of lobby group European Smokeless Tobacco Council (ESTOC) over the past two years. He discussed resisting the EU ban on snus with them.
For more detail, see the TobaccoTactics page on Tim Haigh.

Abusive Language in the Online Snus Community

Haigh’s message generated a lot of response. Some forum members comments used abusive language about the authors, such as “biggest bastards” and “anti-tobacco nazis”. One forum member, ‘Ansel’, wrote on 30 January 2012:

I shall be contacting Silvy Peeters and Anna B Gilmore from the Department of Health in Bath University by whatever means at the earliest opportunity and giving them a piece of my mind. How dare they! – adding the authors’ work contact details and a photo of Professor Gilmore.⁸⁵

Others searched for more personal details online and published these at the forum, as the screen grab below illustrates.¹⁰⁵

Phone Calls and Emails

On the same day as their contact details were posted on the forum, the authors started receiving emails and phone calls from disgruntled snus user(s). All calls were made from the same mobile phone number, and included personal attacks on the authors’ nationality and physical appearance, and went as far as suggesting physical violence against one of the authors.¹⁰⁶

FOI Requests

Also on 30 January 2012, the University of Bath received a Freedom of Information (FOI) request asking who funded the research on the placing of orders for snus from various EU member states, despite this information being clearly stated in the paper.
Preceding this was a message¹⁰⁷ posted on the snuson.com forum by member Ansel saying “Someone must have funded them to buy all this snus”. Part of the University of Bath’s response to the FOI applicant was subsequently posted on the forum on 2 February 2012, including contact details of affiliate members of the tobacco control community, who also subsequently received calls and emails. A further two FOI requests were submitted by the same individual in relation to the snus paper, and another three in relation to another project managed by the University of Bath’s Tobacco Control Research Group.

Facebook: Tobacco Marketing Uncovered UK

The project that received subsequent FOI requests was a Facebook site set up by the University of Bath’s Tobacco Control Research Group, on behalf of the UK Centre for Tobacco Control Studies, to monitor tobacco marketing tactics across the UK. On 14 February 2012, members of the snus forum discovered the Facebook site, ¹⁰⁸ and subsequently organised a campaign to have Facebook shut down the page.

Furthermore, an organised attempt was planned to spam the Facebook page with pro-snus and pro-tobacco messages.

Conclusion

The University of Bath case shows that the online threats, coupled with Freedom of Information requests, were part of a coordinated effort to intimidate academics involved in tobacco control. There was a clear link between the online abuse and threatening phone calls by disgruntled bloggers on the one hand, and the FOI requests on the other.

Relevant TobaccoTactics Resources

• The page about snus blogger Tim Haigh has more detail on his links with the snus industry and its EU lobbyists in Brussels.
• Freedom of Information Requests
  • FOI: SmokeFree South West
  • FOI: Stirling University

• Also see: Australia: Freedom of Information Requests

References

The post FOI: University of Bath appeared first on TobaccoTactics.