Daily Doc: PM, May 26, 1987: Spinning the Info on Secondhand Smoke
Daily Doc: Spinning the Info on Secondhand Smoke
Title: MINUTES OF EEMA / EEC ETS STRATEGY MEETING HELD ON 870511
PM, May 26, 1987
Bates #: 2046754737/4740
December 25, 2000
By the 1980s, there was no longer any serious scientific doubt that exposure to secondhand smoke was detrimental to human beings. Facing massive threats to its profits from the spreading public knowledge of the dangers spread by their products, the Philip Morris tobacco company emerged as the ringleader among the multinational tobacco manufacturers in instituting a global effort to obscure the link between secondhand smoke and illness in non-smokers.
PM's web site today states that "Government authorities ...have concluded that ETS not only increases the risk, but has been established as a cause, of lung cancer in nonsmokers" and that people should rely on such messages from public health authorities. Nevertheless, PM's "strictly confidential" words, previously unseen by the public, provide a stark outline of the company's frightening underlying global agenda against public health. Note the combative and detrimental "End Goals" and "Pre-requisites" for PM's environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) Strategy:
"End Goals:Part of PM's routine strategy to fool the public about the dangers of secondhand smoke was to create its own independent "third party" allies who would act as "independent experts," and "spin" the issue its way in public testimony and the media. PM's intent to deceive the public is clearly revealed in this document, which says (of ACVA Atlantic, PM's "third party ventilation expert"):
Resist smoking restrictions
Restore smoker confidence
Prerequisites:
Reverse scientific and popular opinion
Restore social acceptability of smoking
Preserve product liability defences."
"ACVA must be perceived to be at arm's length from the industry, including media briefings. Its role at most should seem as yet another third party expert amongst others."PM has never come clean about techniques like this that they have used to fool the public, nor have they publicly apologized for the damage they have done to public health by using such deceit. And yet in innumerable television and magazine ads today PM is casting itself as a socially responsible company. It was recently suggested that if PM truly wanted to be a socially responsible company, their ads would show PM employees hauling free oxygen concentrators, portable oxygen tanks, free nasal cannulas and tracheostomy supplies to the millions of sickened and homebound victims of their products.
CITATION
Title: MINUTES OF EEMA / EEC ETS STRATEGY MEETING HELD ON 870511
Type of Document: Strictly confidential memorandum
Author Besques, J
Recipient: BADLER,RD; BESQUES,JL; BROOKS,B; CARLSON,SG; DISERENS,G; DULLES,F; GAISCH,H; GRANDJEAN,P; HORST,MD; KANNANGARA,A; MAGLIONE,P; NASSIF,GL; PANTET,RA; POTTORFF,MO; REARDON,M; REIF,H; ROBINSON,B; RUPP,JB; SARGEANT,I; WARE,KJ
Date: 19870526
Site:Philip Morris document sitehttp://www.pmdocs.com/
Page Count 4
Bates No.2046754737/4740
URL: http://www.pmdocs.com/getallimg.asp?DOCID=2046754737/4740
Litigation Usage: None yet
Search Criteria: "reif & confidential & ETS" on the Philip Morris site (Helmut Reif was a PM operative in Europe)
QUOTES
Objectives of ETS strategy (from the EEMA Plan)
End Goals:
Resist smoking restrictions
Restore smoker confidence
Prerequisites:
Reverse scientific and popular opinion
Restore social acceptability of smoking
Preserve product liability defences.
Components of the ETS Strategy
Target PA/PR Activities:
Public
Politicians
Competent authorities
Unions
Employees
Airlines
Hotels, restaurants, cafeterias
Climate Development and Support:
Seminars
Briefings
Research (basic and applied)
Publications
Professional body participation
Establish Third Parties:
Scientific experts (identification, organization) ACVA-Type
...REMARKS:
The product liability implications of what is said and communicated in the course of media briefings and elsewhere must be borne in mind... ACVA must be perceived to be at arm's length from the industry, including in media briefings. Its role at most should seem as yet another third party expert amongst others.
Other Support (needed or forthcoming):
Public speaking training to be provided for third-party experts. Suitable environment to be created for third-party scientists (e.g., opportunity to meet peers and exchange ideas, access to information). Database being set up to provide references and arguments...
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Anne Landman, Regional Program Coordinator
American Lung Association of Colorado, West Region Office
Grand Junction, CO
(970) 245-2120
afoxland@gj.net
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END OF DOCUMENT