News Release

Previously secret documents reveal the truth about the tobacco industry

Peer-Reviewed Publication

BMJ

Do candy cigarettes encourage young people to smoke?

"Operation Berkshire": the international tobacco companies' conspiracy

A day in the life of an advertising man: review of internal documents from the UK tobacco industry's principal advertising agencies

The truth about big tobacco in its own words

Previously secret internal tobacco industry documents - now publicly available - form the basis for three studies in this week's BMJ. They provide a unique insight into an industry determined to protect its commercial interests at the expense of world-wide public health.

Francey and Chapman reveal that in 1977, seven of the world's major tobacco companies formally conspired to promote "controversy" over smoking and disease and to mount a program of "smoker reassurance" to counter the increasing social unacceptability of smoking. This conspiracy, say the authors, led to the formation of the International Committee on Smoking Issues, later to become the International Tobacco Information Centre, which operated through "task forces" to undermine tobacco control measures throughout the world.

Co-operation between the manufacturers of tobacco and candy cigarettes to effectively promote smoking in children is described by Klein and St Clair. They show that some tobacco companies granted confectioners permission to use cigarette pack designs, tolerated trademark infringement and suppressed research showing the potentially harmful effects of candy cigarettes in promoting smoking to children.

Hastings & MacFadyen show that UK tobacco companies are actively seeking to encourage smoking - not just extend brand share as they frequently claim. They attract and retain "new entrants" to the market by creating "aspirational, lifestyle brand" images to enhance the appeal of what they recognise as a "rites of passage" behaviour. Everything from pack design to clever sponsorship deals are used to strengthen these brands and "engage" youngsters' "aspirations and fantasies" say the authors. The naked commercial imperative that underpins this activity totally discredits voluntary regulation and demonstrates that tightly policed, statutory controls are essential.

These documents contain information that shocks even hardened anti-tobacco activists, says Stanton Glantz in an accompanying editorial. He suggests that it is time for British American Tobacco to make its documentation freely available on the internet - as American tobacco companies agreed to do as part of a settlement of lawsuits in 1998. "It will force the truth out of the shadows and into the public eye" he concludes.

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Contacts:

Simon Chapman, Department of Public Health & Community Medicine, University of Sydney, Australia Email: simonc@health.usyd.edu.au

Jonathan Klein, Division of Adolescent Medicine, University of Rochester School of Medicine, Rochester, New York, USA Email: jonathan_klein@urmc.rochester.edu

Gerard Hastings, Centre for Tobacco Control Research, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland Email: g.hastings@strath.ac.uk

Stanton Glantz, Institute for Health Policy Studies, University of California, San Francisco, USA Email: glantz@medicine.ucsf.edu


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