STUDY OBJECTIVE To examine the involvement of Philip Morris in Living Tomorrow 2 and determine the rationale behind its involvement. DESIGN Research was conducted through a web based search of internal tobacco industry documents made publicly available through litigation. MAIN RESULTS For approximately 1,000,000 euros Philip Morris (now Altria) became a co-initiator of Living Tomorrow 2, a ...

Opponents of public health and environmental regulations often try to "manufacture uncertainty" by questioning the validity of scientific evidence on which the regulations are based. Though most identified with the tobacco industry, this strategy has also been used by producers of other hazardous products. Its proponents use the label "junk science" to ridicule research that threatens powerful ...

This article explores the connection between human rights and tobacco control, and in particular, the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). We address rights-based arguments used by the tobacco industry to argue against tobacco regulation. We demonstrate the weakness of these arguments, and that tobacco control and human rights are, in fact, not in conflict, but are mutually reinforci...

BACKGROUND Tobacco industry interference has been identified as the greatest obstacle to the implementation of evidence-based measures to reduce tobacco use. Understanding and addressing industry interference in public health policy-making is therefore crucial. Existing conceptualisations of corporate political activity (CPA) are embedded in a business perspective and do not attend to CPA's soc...

OBJECTIVES To compile scientific documentation of the historic interest of the tobacco industry in minors and youths. METHODS We performed a literature review of electronic scientific databases and an electronic search of technical reports and scientific articles published after 1999. RESULTS Thirteen technical reports and 30 articles in international scientific journals and other publicati...

Calls for institutional investors to divest (sell off) tobacco stocks threaten the industry's share values, publicise its bad behaviour, and label it as a politically unacceptable ally. US tobacco control advocates began urging government investment and pension funds to divest as a matter of responsible social policy in 1990. Following the initiation of Medicaid recovery lawsuits in 1994, advoc...

OBJECTIVES This study examined changes in tobacco promotions in the alternative press in San Francisco and Philadelphia from 1994 to 1999. METHODS A random sample of alternative newspapers was analyzed, and a content analysis was conducted. RESULTS Between 1994 and 1999, numbers of tobacco advertisements increased from 8 to 337 in San Francisco and from 8 to 351 in Philadelphia. Product adv...

On June 12, 2009, the United States Congress passed the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (S. 982), granting the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authority regulating tobacco products. The idea of FDA regulation of tobacco has broad [1], but not unanimous, support among medical and public health professionals. This law has many strengths (Table 1): it grants the FDA general...

BACKGROUND It is well known that the tobacco industry has placed articles in scientific literature to maintain controversy over the dangers of tobacco use, while claiming that smokers are well-informed about risk. This study illuminates an industry attempt to directly undermine popular understanding of the hazards of smoking using an industry-created organization called Associates for Research ...

OBJECTIVE To document efforts on the part of public officials in California to soften the media campaign's attack on the tobacco industry and to analyse strategies to counter those efforts on the part of tobacco control advocates. METHODS Data were gathered from interviews with programme participants, direct observation, written materials, and media stories. In addition, internal documents we...