Two studies released yesterday allege that big tobacco companies tried to undermine anti-smoking policies in Asia by infiltrating a research institute in Thailand and providing funding for one in China.
Public health researchers from the University of Sydney and the University of Edinburgh analyzed internal industry documents made public following litigation in the US. The researchers claimed that Philip Morris planted a scientist in Chulabhorn Research Institute in Bangkok in a bid to get researchers to play down the impact of secondhand smoking.
A separate study including a Mayo Clinic researcher alleges that British American Tobacco provided funding in China for the Beijing Liver Foundation in a campaign to shift the focus there away from smoking dangers to ailments like liver disease.
Both companies denied the charges presented online in the Public Library of Science Medicine journal. The two studies were partly funded by the National Cancer Institute in the US.
COVERT INFLUENCE
Anti-smoking groups say big tobacco for years has sought to covertly influence government smoking policies and squash scientific findings highlighting the hazards of smoking.
Earlier reviews of company documents have claimed that cigarette companies worked to defeat a tobacco advertising ban in Europe, pressured drug companies to tone down marketing for smoking-cessation products and placed consultants at the WHO to try to subvert efforts to reduce smoking.
Critics contend the companies are turning increasingly to Asia where smokers are on the rise.
WHO estimated this year that 30 percent of the world’s smokers now live in China and 10 percent in India. Thailand has seen the number of cigarettes smoked more than double since 1972 to 42 billion sticks in 2004.
“There is no doubt that the WHO regrets the unethical behavior of tobacco companies that infiltrate research organizations to influence the research process and the findings of such organizations,” said Edouard Tursan d’Espaignet, an epidemiologist with the WHO’s Tobacco Free Initiative.
GOVERNMENT-FUNDED
In the Thai study, University of Sydney’s Ross MacKenzie and University of Edinburgh’s Jeff Collin allege that Philip Morris scientist Roger Walk was able to lecture and organize conferences at the Thai government-funded Chulabhorn from the early 1990s to at least 2006.
The researchers say this allowed Philip Morris to develop relationships with key officials and scientists in efforts to discount the threat of secondhand smoke.
OPEN AFFILIATION
Spokeswoman Marija Sepic of Switzerland-based Philip Morris International — which separated this year from the US branch of the company — dismissed the documents as outdated and said the company never hid its affiliation with Walk.
However, Chulabhorn associate vice president Jutamaad Satayavivad said the institute was not aware Walk worked for Philip Morris until about a decade into his tenure. After seeing the study, institute officials plan to bar him because he was “not straightforward in sharing with us,” she said.
The other study alleges that London-based British American Tobacco used the Beijing Liver Foundation to lobby China’s Health Ministry in a campaign to forestall smoke-free legislation.
The researchers say documents show that the company provided training for industry, public officials and the media to spread its message that secondhand smoke was an insignificant source of pollution.
“Our findings show that, despite the tobacco industry’s public efforts to appear socially responsible and to assert that they are part of the solution to the global tobacco epidemic, there is a fundamental conflict between the interests of tobacco companies and public health,” said the Mayo Clinic’s Monique Muggli, who conducted the study with Kelley Lee, Quan Gan, Jon Ebbert and Richard Hurt.
China’s Health Ministry did not immediately respond to a faxed request for comment.
British American Tobacco spokeswoman Catherine Armstrong said it was illogical to suggest that any link the company has to a medical charity “was an attempt to divert attention away from smoking related disease.”
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion