Martin Dockrell of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) looks at the Conservative party's links to the tobacco industry, and the tobacco industry's false claims.
By Martin Dockrell of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH)
When he was still leader of the opposition David Cameron said:
“I believe that secret corporate lobbying, like the expenses scandal, goes to the heart of why people are so fed up with politics; it arouses people’s worst fears and suspicions about how our political system works.”
His government’s tobacco control plan (pdf), published in March, promises to protect health policy from tobacco industry lobbying. They even plan to make respondents to health consultations declare any links with the tobacco industry, financial or otherwise.
This makes sense when you consider that much of the pro-tobacco lobbying – ostensibly from retailers, publicans and smokers – has been bankrolled by tobacco manufacturers.
The problem with hidden lobbying is just that, it is hidden. On April 27th the Guardian ran the headline:
“BAT denies allegations that it funded anti-tobacco ban lobby.”
The very next day they ran the story:
“BAT admits bankrolling newsagents’ tobacco campaign”
And that only scratches the surface. Tobacconomics, a new report from ASH, shows how the industry generates dodgy data and then recycles it through a lobby laundry process to remove the whiff of Big Tobacco.
We have grown used to an industry that misleads politicians and the public but this is one that will even mislead its own shareholders. At their AGM in Bristol Imperial executives were asked what impact Ireland’s tobacco display ban had on tobacco duty revenue.
Three times they were asked; three times the answer came back “a fall of half a billion pounds”.
But this is a matter of public record. Figures from the Irish government show that in 2009 there was an increase in revenue of €50 million in the six months following the ban as in the six months before.
And have you heard the claim that 50 English pubs have closed every week since the smoking ban? Well there is no official definition of a pub but the number of licenses to sell alcohol both on and off the premises (so excluding restaurants and shops) increased 5% that year and has increased every year since.
In the word’s of the BBC’s Mark Easton:
“Pubs aren’t dying – they are evolving.”
Industry watcher, Professor Anna Gilmore explains how it works:
“Industry funded analysts produce unbalanced and misleading reports, these get recycled by lobbyists and front groups and in due course crop up in the speeches of industry friendly politicians.
“Thus essentially bogus claims become accepted as ‘fact’.”
Let’s look at Philip Davies’s claim that when Canada banned tobacco displays “there was a rise in teenage smoking as a result of the ban”. It all started when Japan Tobacco International (owners of the Silk Cut brand) commissioned consultants “Europe Economics” to provide “expert economic analysis”.
Their findings were quickly recycled by Patrick Basham and published by the Institute for Economic Affairs, thus obscuring the tobacco industry link (although Basham, is adjunct scholar at the tobacco funded Cato Institute). The “factoid” was peddled furiously by the National Federation of Retail Newsagents (the group at the centre of the Guardian’s exposé above).
And what does the data say? Well Canadian provinces introduced display bans over a period of several years and it is difficult to link cause and effect, but over all that time there was not a single year when Canadian teen smoking increased and indeed, over the period, it fell by more than a third.
Last year’s Australian election was marked by a $5 million television campaign attacking the Labour government’s plan to put cigarettes in plain packaging. Research shows plain packs would be less attractive to young people, less misleading to smokers and increase the impact of health warnings.
The ads purported to be from “tobacco retailers” fearing economic ruin, but turned out to be funded by the industry.
Andrew Lansley plans to consult on a similar law for the UK. Internal industry documents reveal manufactures do not “want to see plain packaging introduced anywhere regardless of the size and importance of the market however small”.
One thing is for sure, the industry will be lobbying more ferociously than ever before.
30 Responses to “Is Big Tobacco blowing smoke in Cameron’s eyes?”
Marlene Bakken
Chalk up another death to big pharma! http://www.boston.com/news/local/new_hampshire/articles/2011/06/10/vt_man_who_killed_mother_affected_by_drug/?comments=all No one ever killed anyone, including by the second hand smoke scam, using tobacco. W. Kip Viscusi, an economist and professor at Harvard Law School wrote: In the late 1990s more than 40 state attorneys general sued the major tobacco companies for the excessive medical costs imposed on the states by smoking. In November 1998 this litigation was concluded with the companies agreeing to pay approximately $9 billion a year, to be adjusted for inflation, in damages and lawyers’ fees. The deal was incredibly corrupt; had it been made in any other industry it would surely have been declared illegal. The trial lawyers, the politicians, and even the public health officials and antismoking advocates who believed that any means were appropriate to achieve their desired ends of massive fees, political victories, and higher cigarette prices were the ones who most abused the system.”
The gov’t is complicit. Pharma can’t be sued for their deadly drugs.
Little known fact: Johnson & Johnson controls a “non-profit” who sends lobbyists as fellows free of charge to gov’t officials to “work” for them, when in essence they are there to influence them to benefit Pharma. The RWJF, Johnson & Johnson’s tax exempt “non-profit” that owns hundreds of millions of shares of J&J, has a lot of fellows in Washington. Even Michele Obama has one working with her, thus the “war on obesity”. Once again, pharma has the market cornered on the “treatment”. WE THE PEOPLE need to take control back from these huge corporate entities! Now, I was under the assumption that bribery was illegal! Bribery: “The offering, giving, receiving, or soliciting of something of value for the purpose of influencing the action of an official in the discharge of his or her public or legal duties.” These research grants are just that. As always, who benefits? The Medical-Industrial complex. If a state has two million people with 20% smokers, that’s 400,000, and you make them miserable and get perhaps half of them to try and quit, that’s 200,000 buying nicoderm or nicoret at about $200 a try, that’s $40,000,000.00!
One only has to look at the campaign against healthy raw milk vs. pasteurization which kills all health benefits, or the global warming scam called ClimateGate. All are based on Junk Science, yet still quoted by many as valid research. Unfortunately, too much money is always at stake and it’s the citizens that lose every time!
Dave Atherton
I have previously posted this but because of the URLs needs moderating. I think this needs a wider audience.
If Left Foot Forward readers want to read about big corporations bleeding the taxpayer dry look no further than the World Health Organization (WH0), big pharmaceutical companies and ..er…ASH.
Exhibit 1 the announcement in 1998 of the WHO teaming up with pharmaceutical companies to increase their profits. (1) “WHO LAUNCHES PARTNERSHIP WITH THE PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY TO HELP SMOKERS QUIT.” Yes that is an WHO URL at the bottom.
Exhibit 2 ASH. Mr. Dockrell does ASH still own shares in Glaxo SmithKline? (2) “ASH has a small shareholding in GSK…..We have worked with GSK under the auspices of the WHO-Europe Partnership Project on tobacco dependence and at various one-off opportunities. ASH was instrumental in securing greater government commitment to smoking cessation products in the NHS National Plan and we have helped with PR for both Zyban and Niquitin CQ.”
Exhibit 3 ASH’s take on Pfizer’s stop smoking drug varenicline branded as Chantix/Champix. (3)
“7. It looks to be an effective and welcome addition to our range of medications to help smokers stop.”
What has been the long term effects on users? (4)
“Hundreds of reports of suicides, psychotic reactions and other serious problems tied to the popular stop-smoking drug Chantix were left out of a crucial government safety review because Pfizer Inc., the drug’s manufacturer, submitted years of data through “improper channels.”
“Some 150 suicides — more than doubling those previously known — were among 589 delayed reports of severe issues turned up in a new analysis by the non-profit Institute for Safe Medication Practices.”
“We’ve had a major breakdown in safety surveillance,” said Thomas J. Moore, the ISMP senior scientist who analyzed the data. The serious problems — including reports of completed suicides, suicide attempts, aggression and hostility and depression — had been mixed among some 26,000 records of non-serious side effects such as nausea and rashes, with some dating back to 2006, the year Chantix, or varenicline, was approved.
They echo previous claims that the drug can induce extreme reactions in people trying to quit cigarettes, including vivid nightmares, crippling depression and sudden, violent outbursts.”
Mr. Dockrell are ASH still recommending this big pharma product?
Left Off
Welcome to the tobacco astroturfers: Dave Atherton (Used to call himself Dr Dave but of course he invented the doctorate), and Chris Snowden of course who are old favourites. Thanks Dave for giving us the “Health profession recommend medicine” shock exclusive, now go lie down in a darkened room you demented tory.
But let’s give a special LFF welcome to – all the way from Wisconsin – Tea Party activist… Marlene Bakken!
Left Off
Check this out from bonkers bakken. Tea Party accuses Surgeon General of distorting science. Yep. That’s right.
If I wanted a ballenced opinion of the latest medical evidence I would go the tea party rather than America’s top doctor any time. No competition.
http://www.teapartypatriots.org/GroupNewsDetail/9ceefaf1-9d9d-43ae-b1a1-be90b171650c/812826ad-e55d-41e0-be04-b253029cc9e4/Surgeon%20General%E2%80%99s%20Office%20Again%20Misrepresents%20and%20Distorts%20the%20Science%20in%20Report%20Press%20Release;
Dave Atherton
I see Left off has the guts to real his/her real name. Coward.