Search results: tobacco

Hennessey quotes from a speech by Steven Parrish, of the Steve Parrish Consulting Group describing parallels between tobacco and food litigation.

From the first lawsuit filed against [tobacco] industry member in 1953 to mid-1990s, the industry never lost or settled a smoking and health product liability suit. In the mid ‘90s the eggs hit the fan because the industry for all those decades had smugly thought it had a legal problem. But over time, it came to realize it had a society problem. Litigation was a symptom of the disease, not the disease itself.

…When it came time to resolve the litigation, we couldn’t just sit in a room and say, ‘how much money do you want?…A lot had nothing to do with money. It had to do with reining the industry in…We spent so much time early on talking to ourselves about greedy trial lawyers, out-of-touch regulators, media-addicted elected officials and public health people who didn’t know how to run a business. At the end of the day, it didn’t matter. We would have been much better off recognizing these people had legitimate agendas.”

… Maybe there are some parallels, but I urge people not to succumb to the temptation to say, ‘cigarettes kill you, cigarettes are addictive. But mac and cheese, coffee, and Oscar Meyers wieners don’t. That may be true, but there are still risks for the industry.

There’s this idea, which has picked up steam in the media, that large food companies are manipulating ingredients to hook people on food. It hasn’t been manifest in litigation yet, but we’re seeing it with legislative initiatives, like Mayor Bloomberg in New York City saying sugar hooks people and causes diabetes. We’ve seen some with GMOs, though most of that legislation is about consumers’ right to know. But there’s this overarching concept that Big Food is somehow manipulating our food supply and as a result, giving us non-food.

Sounds like the message is getting across loud and clear.

Thoughts?

Anti-tobacco advocates have been worried for years that concerns about obesity would draw funding away from anti-smoking initiatives (see previous posts).  Their fears are justified, as described in today’s New York Times and in a recent editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Years of experience have taught anti-smoking advocates that countering the marketing efforts of cigarette companies required constant vigilance.  It also taught them that cigarette companies take immediate advantage of any weakening of resistance to their efforts.

Cigarettes remain the leading cause of preventable deaths among Americans.  Cigarette marketing aimed at children remains a national—and international—public health scandal.

Health should not be a zero-sum game.  Anti-obesity advocates have much to learn from anti-smoking advocates.  How about joining forces to improve the health of Americans?

I’ve just read an enlightening paper in the July issue of the American Journal of Public Health (see Note below) about the tobacco industry’s role in and funding of “We Card,” a program ostensibly aimed at discouraging smoking among young people by encouraging retail cigarette sellers to “card” underage buyers.

The paper is an analysis of internal food company discussions about this program in cigarette company documents released as part of the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement.  These documents are now publicly available on the University of  California San Francisco (UCSF) website.

This analysis demonstrates that the actual purpose of tobacco industry support for the program was to make the industry look good (public relations) and to convince legislators and health officials that regulation would be unnecessary.

The industry effectively recruited astonishing numbers of private business, retail, and trade groups (expected) and state health, legal, and police agencies (which should have known better) as partners in this program.  The paper lists these groups in tables that take up nearly five pages.

As the paper explains:

Economic theory predicts that industry self-regulation will achieve social benefits far smaller than those gained from government regulation, although governments increasingly view self-regulation as a means to achieve public goals without public spending. However, industries and governments may have competing agendas, suggesting that public health advocates should be wary of self-regulation strategies…. This program’s success in reaching tobacco retailers and attracting independent allies has made We Card one of the tobacco industry’s major public relations achievements. However, despite industry claims that the program is effective, internal industry evidence suggests that We Card has not reduced tobacco sales to minors and that it was not designed to do so. Instead, We Card was explicitly structured to improve the industry’s public image and to thwart regulation and law enforcement activity.

The authors’ conclusion: “Policymakers should be cautious about accepting industry self-regulation at face value, both because it redounds to the industry’s benefit and because it is ineffective.”

Proponents of food industry self-regulation and of partnerships and alliances with food companies should read this study carefully.

Note: Only the Abstract is available to non-subscribers.  The reference is Apollonio DE, Malone RE, The “We Card” Program: Tobacco Industry “Youth Smoking Prevention” as Industry Self Preservation.. Am J Public Health 2010;100:1188-1201.

The Rudd Center at Yale is devoted to establishing a firm research basis for obesity interventions.  Its latest contribution is a paper in the Milbank Quarterly from its director, Kelly Brownell, and co-author Kenneth Warner, an equally distinguished anti-smoking researcher from the University of Michigan.  Its provocative title: The perils of ignoring history: Big Tobacco played dirty and millions died.  How similar is Big Food?

The paper is getting much attention.  A spokesman for the American Dietetic Association, a group well known for its close ties to food companies, emphasizes that food is not tobacco.  Of course it’s not.  But food companies often behave like tobacco companies, and not always in the public interest.  The Milbank paper provides plenty of documentation to back up the similarity.  Worth a look, no?

April 3 update: Evidently, FoodNavigator.com thinks so.  It is asking readers to file 100 word comments on issues raised by the paper by April 8.   And here are the comments.

San Francisco’s city attorney has sued major food companies for marketing ultra-processed foods (UPF) that make people sick.

The lawsuit: COMPLAINT FOR: VIOLATION OF CALIFORNIA UNFAIR COMPETITION LAW AND PUBLIC NUISANCE

The arguments

I. UPF are dangerous: “No reason exists to believe that humans can fully adapt to these products.”

II.  UPF-like tobacco and illegal drugs–are addictive.

• UPF cause compulsive use in the same ways as other addictive substances
• UPF are psychoactive substances
• UPF are reinforcing

III. Defendants designed UPF to be addictive to drive sales and profits.

IV. Defendants have created a public health crisis, especially for children.

V.  Defendants have deliberately targeted kids (harmful dyes, aggressive marketing, disproportionate targeting).

VI.  Defendants actively conceal the dangers of UPF.

VII.  UPF have contributed to a public health crisis in San Francisco.

This one will be fun to watch,

Resources

• Press conference: City attorney announces legal action
• State of California complaint
• San Francisco City Attorney’s Office: Chiu sues largest manufacturers of ultraprocessed foods
• New York Times: San Francisco will sue ultraprocessed food companies
• Civil Eats: MAHA figure touts San Francisco laawsuit against food companies

There was much fuss last week about the retraction of this highly significant paper about the safety of glyphosate (Roundup), the Monsanto weed killer widely used with genetically modified crops.  As has been suspected for years, it was ghostwritten by Monsanto on cherry-picked data.

The original paper: Safety evaluation and risk assessment of the herbicide Roundup and its active ingredient, glyphosate, for humans. Regul Toxicol Pharmacol. 2000 Apr;31(2 Pt 1):117-65.  doi: 10.1006/rtph.1999.1371.  

Its conclusion: “Roundup herbicide does not pose a health risk to humans.”

The authors thanked Monsanto for generous provision of data.  The acknowledgments did not disclose funding or conflicts of interest.

The retraction notice includes several remarkable statements.

• The article’s conclusions regarding the carcinogenicity of glyphosate are solely based on unpublished studies from Monsanto.
• The authors did not include multiple other long-term chronic toxicity and carcinogenicity studies, that were already done at the time of writing their review in 1999.
• Litigation in the United States revealed correspondence from Monsanto suggesting that the authors of the article were not solely responsible for writing its content. It appears from that correspondence that employees of Monsanto may have contributed to the writing of the article without proper acknowledgment as co-authors.
• The apparent contributions of Monsanto employees as co-writers to this article were not explicitly mentioned as such in the acknowledgments section.
• Further correspondence with Monsanto disclosed during litigation indicates that the authors may have received financial compensation from Monsanto for their work on this article, which was not disclosed as such in this publication.

The retraction points out that the article “has been widely regarded as a hallmark paper in the discourse surrounding the carcinogenicity of glyphosate and Roundup…[and] had a significant impact on regulatory decision-making regarding glyphosate and
Roundup for decades.”

Yikes.

Much of this was discovered as a result of litigation.  Do not miss this analysis by Alexander Kaurov and Naomi Orestes: The afterlife of a ghost-written paper: How corporate authorship shaped two decades of glyphosate safety discourse.  Environmental Science & Policy Volume 171, September 2025, 104160

Litigation in 2017 revealed that Monsanto ghost-wrote an influential 2000 review defending the safety of glyphosate…In all domains, citations predominantly appear without caveats, even after the ghost-writing was exposed.

 I wrote an in-depth investigation of this study and the journal that published it, Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology, eight years ago, revealing that the society behind the journal, ISRTP, was run by a tobacco consultant and held their meetings in the offices of Keller and Heckman, the chief law firm in DC for the chemical industry.

In short, a National Academies staffer seeking a job in the biotech industry picked panelists with ties to biotech companies to write an influential report that alleged no harms in GE agriculture … and that report just happened to be littered with studies published in Reg Tox Pharm—industry’s favorite journal.

And here’s what Retraction Watch has to say: “Glyphosate safety article retracted eight years after Monsanto ghostwriting revealed in court”

The safety of glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, is hotly debated and currently under review at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the World Health Organization, in 2015 declared glyphosate “possibly carcinogenic.”…Three papers about glyphosate on which Williams was an author received an expression of concern and lengthy corrections in 2018 because the authors didn’t fully disclose their ties to Monsanto or the company’s involvement in the articles.

• The New Lede: Citing “serious ethical concerns,” journal retracts key Monsanto Roundup safety study
• The New Lede: Trump administration sides with Bayer in seeking Supreme Court ruling on Roundup fight
• US Right to Know: Landmark glyphosate safety study retracted for Monsanto ghostwriting, other ethics problems
• U.S. Supreme Court:  Monsanto Company, Petitioner v John L. Durnell: Brief for the United States as Amicus Curiae
• EPA Office of Pesticide Programs:  Revised Glyphosate Issue Paper: Evaluation of Carcinogenic Potential (December 12, 2017)
• EPA: Glyphosate
•  The Guardian:  Science journal retracts study on safety of Monsanto’s Roundup: ‘Serious ethical concerns’
• Le Monde: Influential study on glyphosate safety retracted 25 years after publication
• AgFunder News: Landmark glyphosate paper retracted in random reckoning for a scientific relic
• The Canadian Press: Study that said glyphosate herbicide is safe retracted 25 years after publication
• No More Glyphosate NZ: Stop the Chemical Creep

The World Health Organization’s declaration on prevention of non-communicable diseases (NCDs—heart disease, type 2 diabetes, etc) was in the news this week (its source is here).

First, because of what it says and does not say:

These things are miserable to read.  You have to start with the “recognizes.” Here are two:

Recognize also that the main modifiable risk factors of noncommunicable diseases are tobacco use, harmful use of alcohol, unhealthy diets, physical inactivity and air pollution and are largely preventable and require cross-sectoral actions;

Recognize also that obesity is driven by multiple factors, including the unaffordability and unavailability of healthy diets, lack of physical activity, sleep deprivation, and stress;

But after all that, the declaration merely suggests [my comments]:

(i) promoting increased availability and affordability of nutritious food and information on healthy eating including through promoting efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable agrifood systems [how?]

(ii) improving policies and taking measures to reduce industrially-produced trans-fatty acids to the lowest level possible and reduce excessive levels of saturated fats, free sugars and sodium [by what means?]

(iii) providing nutritional information to consumers, such as through front-of-pack labeling;

(iv) putting in place public food procurement and service policies for healthy diets;

(v) protecting children from the harmful impact of food marketing, including digital marketing [How?  By what means?]

(vi) protecting, promoting and supporting optimal breastfeeding practices, including by regulating the marketing of breastmilk substitutes [at last, regulation] and

(vii) promoting adequate physical activity, including sports and recreation, and reducing sedentary behavior, including through
increasing access to public spaces.

What’s missing here?  Policy!

• Where, for example, is soda taxation?  [The WHO says it wants soda taxes to increase by 50% as part of its 3 by 35 initiative, but the declaration mentions taxes on tobacco and alcohol, not sodas].
• Where is regulation of marketing to kids?
• Where is reduction of ultra-processed foods?
• Where are warning labels?

Whatever.  All of this could be moot.

Second, because the U.S. will not sign on to the declaration

The reasons are quite different.

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, oddly since he wants to Make America Healthy Again, objected to the declaration.  He says he cannot “support W.H.O. policies that…promoted abortion and “radical gender ideology.”  This too is odd because neither is mentioned in the declaration.

He is also quoted as saying,

More specifically, we cannot accept language that pushes destructive gender ideology…Neither can we accept claims of a constitutional or international right to abortion. The WHO cannot claim credibility or leadership until it undergoes radical reform. The United States objects to the political declaration of non communicable diseases.

Again, odd because MAHA has a political agenda to end NCDs.

But I am more concerned about the failure of WHO to propose stronger measures.  Earlier drafts, apparently, contained stronger language.

Third, because conflicts of interest could be involved

What’s going on here?  Could this have something to do with it? Alarm as WHO accepts increasing amount of dark money from donors.

The WHO Foundation, according to Who funds the WHO Foundation? A transparency analysis of donation disclosures over the first 3 years of its operation, takes large donations from corporate and philanthropic groups and individuals without revealing who they are.

Oh dear.

Resources

• New York Times 
• Food Fix 

I could hardly believe it when I saw this item: Taiwan state distillery taps food market with alcohol-based instant noodles.   Taiwan’s state distillery has diversified into the food industry with alcohol-based instant noodles, blending beverage expertise with ready-to-eat innovation… Read more

The Taiwan Tobacco and Liquor Corporation (TTL)’s

most well-known products are Taiwan Beer which is considered an icon in Taiwanese culture and also the most popular beer locally; as well as traditional Chinese Hua Tiao wine.

The latter has been used in TTL’s instant noodle innovation to create its viral TTL Hua Tiao Chicken Noodles, which incorporate not only significant Hua Tiao wine content but also Chinese herbs and meat chunks.

“These are not your average instant noodles – Hua Tiao wine elevates the noodles to another level, as it is traditionally known for its antioxidant content as well as benefits for digestion and blood circulation….”We already have the alcohol in production, and we are indeed well-known for our liquors, so it made a lot of sense to us.”

I’ll bet.

I suppose young people will have to be carded to be allowed to eat it.  Whatever.  You can’t make this stuff up!

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