Category: Tobacco

Ethics, Health, Media, Tobacco

Philip Morris: “Get sick children on Oprah”

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In 1993, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officially listed secondhand tobacco smoke as a Group A Human Carcinogen, the same rating the agency gives to asbestos, radon gas and vinyl chloride. The listing was a public relations disaster for the tobacco industry, and their internal documents show how tobacco companies reacted. A 6-page Philip Morris planning document found in the files of Ted Lattanzio (Director of Philip Morris Worldwide Regulatory Affairs), lists strategies and budgets for fighting efforts to ban smoking in workplaces and public places.  Page 4 describes a strategy for dealing with public information about how childrens’ health is disproportionately affected by exposure to secondhand smoke:

“Shift the debate on ETS [environmental tobacco smoke] and children to: Are our schools and day care centers making children sick?”

Tactics proposed for making the public believe that schools and day care centers are making children sick (instead of secondhand smoke) include:

“Feed available information to National School Board Association in D.C.  Feed information to Oprah, et. al. Get sick children on the shows.  Research newspaper clippings of parents who keep children at home because of school environment — pass those on.  Why?  Shift the debate.  Why is EPA not spending research dollars on solving school problem?? I have the research budget for next year — not very much is going to identify or solve the school problem.  Get information to EPA Watch.”

Philip Morris’ estimated budget for the effort to blame day care facilities for making children sick was $100,000.

Advertising, Ethics, Health, Tobacco

CVS Drug Stores Tout Healthy Image While Profiting from Disease & Death

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Dr. Gerace's CVS protest ad

For 103 days now, Terence Gerace, Ph.D. has stood outside CVS pharmacies in Washington, D.C. protesting their sales of a product that is known to be deadly when used exactly as directed: cigarettes. In press releases and ads, CVS claims it works to improve health and lower health care costs for Americans, but all the while it continues to sell the leading causes of preventable death and disease in the U.S. No matter what they say in their ads, the truth is that CVS, and other national drug chains, like Rite Aid and Walgreens (pdf), do not care about health one bit. They care about profits, and every day they profit from both causing and curing disease. Pharmacies are among the most trusted sources of health information in the U.S., but for decades, national drug chains have actively colluded behind the scenes with tobacco companies not only to market cigarettes, but also to oppose legislation (pdf) to regulate tobacco. Dr. Gerace, a former Research Associate Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at the University of Miami School of Medicine, knows all of this, so it’s no wonder he saw red after spotting a full-page CVS ad in the Washington Post that screamed, “To better manage chronic diseases, we needed a new kind of pharmacy…” Incensed, Dr. Gerace made a new sign out of the ad by adding the big words “NEW CVS Cigarette-Free!” above the headline. Now he uses this sign in his ongoing, one-man protest against CVS selling cigarettes. In 2010, the American Pharmacists Association issued a statement urging U.S. pharmacies to stop selling tobacco.  Boston and San Francisco have passed laws forcing pharmacies to stop selling cigarettes, and Target, the nation’s third-largest retailer chain, stopped selling cigarettes in 1996.  It is counter-intuitive, inimical to their mission and just plain two-faced for a business to portray itself as caring about people’s health while also selling cigarettes, but until a law forces them stop, CVS, as well as Rite Aid and Walgreens, plan to keep advertising that they care about health while continuing to sell the leading cause of death and disease in the U.S.

Ethics, Secrecy, Tobacco

Cigarette Exec: How to Make People Think OJ Causes Cancer?

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Editor’s note: In this blog, I will occasionally summarize lesser-known but highly important tobacco industry documents that should be part of the public record, and the public consciousness. Following is one such article. — A.L.

Cigarette exec mused about how to confuse the public about which products actually cause cancer

In a twisted 1997 memo, Seth Moskowitz of R.J. Reynolds’ (RJR) Public Relations department recounts a brainstorming session held to address problems facing the tobacco industry at the time, particularly a lack of credibility and an onslaught of lawsuits being filed against the industry by state Attorneys General seeking to recoup the costs of treating sick smokers.

The memo begins by discussing the need to “humanize” the tobacco industry by putting kind and helpful face on the company (RJR).  Moskowitz complains that the public perceives the industry to be “a group of two-faced, conscience-less killers who trade lives for dollars.  Nothing could be further from the truth,” he says, “but the public doesn’t know this.”

The discussion quickly turns to ideas for turning public opinion against the AG’s lawsuits.  One plan was to instigate a wave of frivolous, ridiculous lawsuits against a number of other industries.  For example, Moskowitz proposes using a study to “indicate that drinking citrus juice carries an increased risk of lung cancer.”  Moskowitz muses,

“What if we worked with the state AGs or legislators in some tobacco states (NC, VA), and with a business or citizens group in Florida to sue the citrus producers in Florida and California for reimbursement of state medical expenses paid to treat illnesses ’caused’ by the consumption of citrus products? Under current Florida law, this could be done entirely using a statistical model.  All we need to do is plug in a few statistics and suddenly we can calculate the dollar amount Florida has paid out in medical expenses to treat orange juice-related cancers.  Could also mount a highly emotional PR campaign against citrus growers for harming children (stunting their growth).  We could choose other states and industries and do the same thing (Minnesota and dairy products? California and wine consumption? Beef and any number of states.)  A series of Medicaid reimbursement-type suits simultaneously launched against a number of industries in a number of states would get major coverage and drive home how ridiculous the recent AG attacks on the tobacco industry are.”

Immediately following this self-serving idea to cause havoc in other industries, Moskowitz flips back to seeking ways to “humanize” the industry.  One idea was to use an ad campaign to highlight the good works RJR employees do in their private lives, like helping school children and carrying the torch for the Olympics.

Moskowitz currently still works for Reynolds American as Director of Communications for Reynolds’ subsidiary, the Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company.

See the memo here.

 

 

Lobbying, politics, Secrecy, Tobacco

“Bad Acts” Describes Tobacco Industry Interference in DOJ Case

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A soon-to-be-published new book tells the hidden story of how the Bush Administration intervened to protect Big Tobacco from the 1999 U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) lawsuit filed under President Clinton. The book is authored by Sharon Eubanks, the DOJ attorney who headed up the team that won the multi-billion dollar Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organization (RICO) case against the industry, and Stanton Glantz, head of the University of California San Francisco’s Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education. “Bad Acts” tells what happened behind-the-scenes — the politics, the litigation, the behavior of the tobacco industry and its lawyers as the Bush Administration worked to gut the case just as the DOJ’s team was approaching victory. The book is currently in production and will ship in mid-May. It can be ordered in hardback at $28.50 from the American Public Health Association. (The price is lower if you are an APHA member). To see a description and pre-order the book, click here.

Advertising, Marketing, Media, Tobacco

In-Your-Face Ad Leverages Smoker Frustration to Sell E-Cigarettes

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Ad leverages smokers' frustration to sell e-cigarettes

The maker of the “blu” brand of electronic cigarette is hoping smokers will respond to a particularly aggressive ad campaign that exploits their frustration and anger to sell more of their product. The ad’s  headline that says, “Dear Smoking Ban.” Beneath the headline is a photo of an angry older, middle-aged woman flipping her middle finger at the viewer. The ad text links smoking to freedom, a psychological construct long used by the tobacco industry to counteract the understanding that nicotine causes a powerful addiction that robs smokers of control over their tobacco use. The ad text says, “Take back your freedom to smoke anywhere with blu electronic cigarettes. blu produces no smoke and no ash, only vapor, making it the smarter alternative to regular cigarettes. It’s the most satisfying way to tell the smoking bans to kiss off. Okay, maybe the second most satisfying way.”  Electronic cigarettes contain nicotine, but since they don’t actually burn tobacco, they don’t contain as much of the hazardous byproducts of burned tobacco.