Tobacco.org

• Destroyed documents: uncovering the science that Imperial Tobacco Canada sought to conceal  

Background: In 1992, British American Tobacco had its Canadian affiliate, Imperial Tobacco Canada, destroy internal research documents that could expose the company to liability or embarrassment. Sixty of these destroyed documents were subsequently uncovered in British American Tobacco's files. . . .

Results: Imperial Tobacco destroyed documents that included evidence from scientific reviews prepared by British American Tobacco's researchers, as well as 47 origin al research studies, 35 of which examined the biological activity and carcinogenicity of tobacco smoke. The documents also describe British American Tobacco research on cigarette modifications and toxic emissions, including the ways in which consumers adapted their smoking behaviour in response to these modifications. The documents also depict a comprehensive research program on the pharmacology of nicotine and the central role of nicotine in smoking behaviour. British American Tobacco scientists noted that "... the present scale of the tobacco industry is largely dependent on the intensity and nature of the pharmacological action of nicotine," and that "... should nicotine become less attractive to smokers, the future of the tobacco industry would become less secure."

Interpretation: The scientific evidence contained in the documents destroyed by Imperial Tobacco demonstrates that British American Tobacco had collected evidence that cigarette smoke was carcinogenic and addictive. The evidence that Imperial Tobacco sought to destroy had important implications for government regulation of tobacco.

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• VIDEO: Kevin Grandia: The Philip Morris Theory of Global Warming 

The tobacco companies were sued by the US government for this behavior and I suspect such a suit will be filed someday against the companies (i.e. ExxonMobil), the organizations (i.e. the Competitive Enterprise Institute) and the individuals (i.e. Steve Milloy) who perpetrated the attack on climate science.

All this leads to a shameless plug.

Jim Hoggan, co-founder of the DeSmogBlog Project, which I have managed for the last four years has written a book that chronicles the history of PR spindoctors working to confuse the realities of climate change (and tobacco). It's called Climate Cover Up: the crusade to deny global warming and it comes out in hard copy in the US on Oct. 20th. You can get it now on Amazon and Barnes and Noble if you can't wait.

People who have read the book tell me that they're angry. And its time for everyone to get angry about this and start holding people like Milloy accountable for what they've done.

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• DICKINSON: Echoes of Philip Morris and Hillarycare 

I touched on the Philip Morris campaign, briefly, in "The Lie Machine," but I've since uncovered a bumper crop of additional memos from the Legacy Tobacco Documents Library that offer a detailed picture of the cigarette maker's behind-the-scenes moves to defeat the Clinton health care reform in '94 -- and why the tobacco company was so motivated.

The costs of the Clinton health reform were to be covered, in part, by new tobacco taxes. As this memo from the company's Washington Relations Office reveals, Philip Morris' decided it would try beat back this threat by torpedoing health care reform altogether: . . .

• Third Party support is important. We provide assistance to Citizens for a Sound Economy, Center for Policy Analysis, Manhattan Institute and numerous other organizations. . . .

Citizens for a Sound Economy's effort bore a striking resemblance to the town-hall campaign waged this August by its offspring. This "Tobacco Strategy" memo describes CSE's program in full swing, replete with a mobilization of up-in-arms constituents at town halls . . .

Philip Morris tapped its own employees to play the part of concerned citizens . . .

Who were those allies? This March 22, 1994, "Tobacco Strategy Review" marked "confidential" lists Philip Morris' friends in the foxhole, including, notably, the Manhattan Institute, where one Betsy McCaughey was a fellow: . . .

To influence swing Democrats in the House, PM quietly paid CSE to gin up a "grassroots" anti-tax rebellion, as detailed in this memo . . .

• PM COMPANIES INC. AND RJR HAVE FORMED THE PM/RJR TOBACCO TASK FORCE TO COORDINATE ACTIONS ON… FET.

This “Task Force” was star-studded. Indeed, it was anchored by a former top George H.W. Bush consultant who would go on to found FoxNews:

• TASK FORCE MEMBERS INCLUDE:

…

Roger Ailes, public affairs strategist

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• Serial misinformer McCaughey exposed as Big Tobacco shill during 1994 health care debate 

Philip Morris budgeted $25,000 for McCaughey employer Manhattan Institute in 1995. As Media Matters Senior Fellow Jamison Foser documented, Philip Morris budgeted $25,000 for The Manhattan Institute for 1995 -- the think tank that employed McCaughey when she authored her hit piece in 1994.

Neither The New Republic nor McCaughey disclosed her reported conflict of interest

TNR presented McCaughey as an impartial expert.

In McCaughey's February 7, 1994 article, "No Exit," and February 28, 1994, article, "She's BAAACK!," The New Republic only identified her as the "John M. Olin Fellow at the Manhattan Institute" (articles retrieved from the Nexis database). . . .

McCaughey's Clinton-era claims have been widely debunked -- repeatedly so in TNR

Media cite bill Section 1003 explicitly providing "protection of consumer choice." Rebutting McCaughey's claims, many media accounts have cited Section 1003, which, contrary to McCaughey's claims, makes clear that individuals can "go outside the system to buy basic health coverage" and that individuals can pay doctors out-of-pocket. This section is often referenced as "page 15" or "page 16" of the bill, the pages on which it appears. . . .

Weinstein points to George Will to explain how McCaughey's "misrepresentations ... spread quickly." In his February 6, 1994, New York Times opinion piece, Weinstein wrote that "Conservatives, ranging from Senator Bob Dole to the columnist George Will, have embraced her broadside as gospel." He added that "[h]er misrepresentations have spread quickly . . .

Despite her past conflicts of interest and falsehoods, media treat McCaughey as if she's credible

McCaughey is a serial misinformer who has perpetuated numerous falsehoods about health care reform. . . .

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• Manhattan Institute Statement: Betsy McCaughey Was Not Paid or Influenced by Philip Morris 

"Below is a letter to the editor of Rolling Stone from Lawrence Mone, President, Manhattan Institute for Policy Research."

In his article "The Lie Machine" Tim Dickenson asserts that former Manhattan Institute scholar Betsy McCaughey's work was influenced by Phillip Morris. This conclusion is false. Betsy McCaughey wrote two articles for the Wall Street Journal on the Clinton Health Care plan and an additional article for the New Republic which was solicited by its publisher. At no time were her ideas influenced or controlled by anyone but the author herself.

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• TOBACCO STRATEGY (dtv34e00) (PDF) 

Document Date: 19940300/E . . .

TOBACCO STRATEGY

• Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty . . .

Acton is presently preparing, with our assistance, a monograph for the Detroit News detailing arguments against "sin" taxes. I win be contacting them this week to elicit their assistance in rebutting the just-released University of Michigan report that attacks industry projections of economic dislocation caused by prohibitive excise tax hikes.

• Alexis de Tocqueville Institution (AdTI) . . .

• American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI) . . .

• Americans for Tax Reform (ATR)

A staunch ally of PM for a number of years in many tax battles, ATR has sponsored print ads against the use of excise taxes to fund health cam as well as VNRs on the subject, most recently one detailing the impacts of prohibitive cigarette excises in Canada on the economy and on crime .... which had a profound influence on the eventual decision to rollback the tax. ATR is very close to proponents of alternative health care plans, has good access in the dungeons of Washington as well as with its many state-level contacts throughout the country, and could be mobilized for lobbying or other grassroots tactics either in Washington or in key legislative districts. . . .

• Cato Institute

An Associate Broadcaster of NET, Cato is in discussions with us re promotion on their show ("Cato Policy Forum") of the issues contained in the Regulation magazine article by Dr. Gary Huber, "Smoke and Mirrors: The EPA's Flawed Study of Environmental Tobacco Smoke". As Regulation is a Cato product we are optimistic that such a forum will be provided. Cato is also the "co-sponsor" of the John Goodman/NCPA/Phil Gramm health care alternative---which contains no excise taxes--and hence we should consider working with them in any way possible to promote this as a better alternative to the Clinton plan. This could include any of the spate of policy group activities, ranging from conferences and panel discussions to op-eds and ads, and, of course, including maximum promotion on NET.

• Center for the Study of American Business (CSAB)

Directed by Murray Weidenbaum, former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, CSAB is perhaps the leading American think tank on regulatory issues. We have worked with them on numerous aspects of the regulatory burden imposed on the tobacco industry, and their work has, gotten tremendous airplay. . . .

• Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America

As we all know, the Chamber has been all over the map, including on the wrong side, on this debate. However, we have been intensely lobbying them behind the scenes to "bring them in line" consistent with the other major business organizations, especially on FET, but also on employer mandates. . . .

We are funding a major (400K) grassroots initiative in the districts of House Energy & Commerce members to educate and mobilize consumers, through town hall meetings, radio and print ads, direct mail, patch-through calls to the Capitol switchboard, editorial board visits, polling data, meetings with Members and staff and the release of studies and other educational pieces. The goal of this effort is to show the Clinton plan as a government-run health, care system replete with higher taxes and government spending, massive job losses, less choice, rationing of care and extensive bureaucracies. CSE is taking aim at the heart of the plan --- employer mandates, new entitlements, price controls, mandatory health alliances, heavy load of new taxes and global budgets--and, with the program well underway, is by all accounts getting rave reviews in the respective districts.

• Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ)/Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy(ITEP)

As a leading labor-backed organization, CTRJ/ITEP and we have worked closely to highlight the regressive nature of tobacco excise taxes, and, in particular, how the problem would be exacerbated by passage of the Clinton plan. As this group has a strong voice in the labor movement, we plan to reinforce this message through the mobilization of this important constituency.

• The Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy

Worked with this think tank in the development of a major policy paper entitled "The Clinton Health Plan: Bad Medicine for California". Bruce Herschensohn and other Claremont spokesmen are doing a media blitz to disseminate the findings . . .

• Consumer Alert

The antithesis of the Nader/Citizen Action brand of "consumer defense", Consumer Alert has worked with us in the promotion of the concept that the Clinton plan is anti-consumer, both in toto and because of the regressive excise taxes contained therein. . . .

• Grocery Manufacturers of America (GMA)

Worked with GMA in the formulation of a resolution on health care reform mirroring that of the BRT. We currently chair the GMA Tax Committee and hence can ensure that no wayward positioning on excises ensues.

• The Heartland Institute

As a member of the Board, I am working with Heartland in several areas: . . . Through all these efforts runs Heartland's 1994 top priority: to inform policymakers, reporters and opinion leaders of the true nature of the Clinton Administration's health care reform legislation . . .

• The Heritage Foundation

Worked with Heritage in the development of alternative policy prescriptions to the Clinton plan, and articles and opeds espousing such positioning. Our efforts have resulted in several major policy papers, including one on the massive economic dislocation that would result from the implementation of the Clinton plan (including drastically less cigarette tax revenue than is currently envisioned), one on the implications of a prohibitive cigarette excise hike on the CPI, government transfer payments and net revenue, one on the misapplication of science in the EPA/ETS debate, and, possibly, one on the Surgeon General's broadside against tobacco advertising combined with a commercial speecb/First Amendment perspective.

• Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace

Have worked with them on several pieces focused on the Clinton program for universal health care coverage, which, combined with insurance coverage for mental health and reduced prescription costs, bound together with a fuzzy plan to finance the program, would be a recipe for disaster that will result in reduced employment in the international economy, continued unequal access to medical services and additions to the federal deficit.

• Institute for Research on the Economics of Taxation (IRET)

Led by Norm Ture, former Undersecretary of the Treasury for Tax and Economic Affairs, and a long time friend of PM, IRET has been perhaps the leading policy group exponent of the evils of selective excise taxation. Via conferences, policy forums, articles, op-eds and the like, IRET has emphasized the point that excises are inefficient and unfair, and has beefed up these efforts since the introduction of the Clinton plan. . . .

• Mackinac Center for Public Policy

Have worked closely with this Michigan-based group in their policy study opposing the President's health care reform proposal, including its funding mechanism. . . .

• Manhattan Institute

Worked off-the-record with Manhattan and writer Betsy McCaughey as part of the input to the three-part expose in The New Republic on what the Clinton plan means to you. . . .

• National Association of Manufacturers (NAM)

Similar to the BRT, but even more strongly, NAM (with our support) came out in opposition to the Clinton health care plan. Simultaneously, we have been working with the NAM Taxation Committee to ensure that regardless of what plan eventually materializes, no selective excise taxes of any kind will be used to fund it. . . .

• National Empowerment Television (NET)

Through a major financial grant (200K) we have signed on as an Associate Broadcaster of this 24-hour-a-day cable/satellite network with potential viewership of nearly 25 million people. We are meeting Friday with producers and staff to plan the miniseries on health care .... which will focus on debunking the myths of the Clinton plan and the use of excises to fund such a plan, and to investigate more market-driven alternatives. . . .

• National Journalism Center

This group was developed to train budding journalists in free market political and economic principles. As a direct result of our support we have been able to work with alumni of this program .... about 15 years worth of journalists at print and visual media throughout the country .... to get across our side of the story .... which has resulted in numerous pieces consistent with our point of view. We also co-sponsored in December a policy minibriefing on health care for a broad cross-section of the Center's Alumni Council, and are now working with the Journalism Center in the development a major health care reform policy conference (tentatively scheduled for late April/early May) that will debunk the myths of the Clinton plan . . .

• National Policy Forum . . .

As a member of the Board, I have worked closely with PRI in the development of policy pieces and op-eds, particularly for major Western markets, in opposition to the Clinton plan and in support of free market alternatives. As a Canadian, the president of PRI has first-hand experience of the evils of government-run health care . . .

• Philanthropy Roundtable . . .

• Pioneer Institute for Public Policy Research . . .

• Tax Foundation

Heavily involved in analyses of the impacts of the Clinton plan on a state-by-state basis. PM is a major supporter of this group, and we have extremely close ties. . . .

• The Texas Republic

Working with the editor of this free market monthly, funded by PM, on an analytic piece debunking the Clinton plan . . .

• Washington Legal Foundation (WLF)

A close ally of PM for many years, WLF has been involved in numerous aspects of the tobacco industry debate. They have filed amicus briefs against the EPA

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• DICKINSON: McCaughey and Philip Morris: Read For Yourself 

Betsy McCaughey has responded to my reporting in the latest issue of Rolling Stone that her infamous writings for the New Republic magazine, which helped torpedo the Clinton health care reform effort of the early 1990s, were shaped by the world's largest tobacco company, Philip Morris.

McCaughey calls the reporting "baseless" and "fictional." But here -- as in the health care debate -- McCaughey is the one distorting the facts. Rolling Stone never claimed that McCaughey "worked for a tobacco company." Further, McCaughey brags that her New Republic piece "No Exit" received a National Magazine Award in 1994. True enough, but McCaughey ignores the fact her willful misrepresentations of Hillarycare were exposed by James Fallows in the The Atlantic in 1995, and that the New Republic recanted her story in 2006.

Now for the truth in black and white: Here is a link to the March 1994 memo (click here for the .pdf) by a Philip Morris executive detailing the tobacco giant's strategy to derail the Clinton health care plan.

The coaching of McCaughey -- then a fellow at the Manhattan Institute -- is detailed on page 5:

A final note: McCaughey tries to attack the messenger, criticizing Rolling Stone for accepting tobacco advertising. Yet McCaughey's own political fortunes have been propelled by tobacco company funds. As this thank you letter on McCaughey '94 stationery reveals, her leap to become lieutenant governor of New York was made possible, in part, by a "generous" campaign contribution from the Tobacco Institute.

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• Betsy McCaughey Responds to the Baseless Charges From Rolling Stone Magazine 

The October 1, 2009 issue of Rolling Stone Magazine includes the outrageous and fictional accusation that I worked for a tobacco company in writing my critique of the dangers of the Clinton Plan. I did not. I was a scholar at the Manhattan Institute, and did no fundraising or conferring with corporations. Absolutely none. My article was based on text of the Health Security Act, period. Because of the accuracy and insights in the article, it was awarded a National Magazine Award for the best article in the nation on public policy and the H.L. Mencken Award.

It is shocking that fifteen years later, Rolling Stone still accepts tobacco advertising. See page 93 of the current issue. Shame on hypocritical Rolling Stone Magazine.

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• The Bloom Is Off the Rose for Tobacco Claims 

Last month, a Los Angeles jury awarded $13.8 million in punitive damages to the daughter of Betty Bullock, a smoker who had sued Philip Morris USA Inc. before she died of cancer. It was a huge loss -- for the plaintiff.

Just seven years before, a different jury in the same case had awarded a record $28 billion in punitives. Philip Morris appealed that blow, and eventually a California appellate court ordered a retrial, leading to the much diminished result of Aug. 24.

What happened between 2002 and last month? Bullock's lawyer, Los Angeles solo practitioner Michael Piuze, did not return calls seeking comment. But Charles Tauman, president of the plaintiff-friendly Tobacco Trial Lawyers' Association, said he had spoken to Piuze, who "felt that the jury that he had was of a different character than the one ... in the original Bullock case. He felt they were harsher and less willing to be sympathetic."

Lawyers on both sides of smoker cases say Piuze's experience is unique only in the magnitude of the lost award. Hard statistics on recent personal injury lawsuits against tobacco companies are difficult to come by, but the anecdotal evidence about punitive damages is growing. Jurors today are less willing to impose severe punishment than jurors just a decade ago.

Lawyers point to changed practices and fading memories, as well as limits on punitives imposed by the U.S. Supreme Court. The major tobacco companies altered their marketing practices following the 1998 master settlement agreement with most states. Younger jurors never knew or retain only dim memories of an era when cigarette packages didn't feature dire health warnings and tobacco executives played down the dangers of their products.

"They're not the evil empire anymore," said Madelyn Chaber . . .

By the time Chaber retried that case in 2007, she found herself in what she called "an entirely different world." Jurors voted for just $250,000 in punitive damages against R.J. Reynolds and rejected punitives against Philip Morris.

"The jury was basically: 'This is old news -- we've heard this and everybody knows it's dangerous,' " Chaber said.

Also, Philip Morris (now part of Altria Group Inc.) is a "changed company," said Murray Garnick

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• Rolling Stone Finds A Smoking Gun: Betsy McCaughey Lied About Healthcare Reform For Tobacco Lobby  

McCaughey's lies were later debunked in a 1995 post-mortem in The Atlantic, and The New Republic recanted the piece in 2006. But what has not been reported until now is that McCaughey's writing was influenced by Phillip Morris, the world's largest tobacco company, as part of a secret campaign to scuttle Clinton's health care reform. (The measure would have been funded by a huge increase in tobacco taxes.) In an internal company memo from March 1994, the tobacco giant detailed its strategy to derail Hillarycare through an alliance with conservative think tanks, front groups and media outlets. Integral to the company's strategy, the memo observed, was an effort to "work on the development of favorable pieces" with "friendly contacts in the media." The memo, prepared by a Phillip Morris executive, mentions only one author by name:

"Worked off-the-record with Manhattan [Editor's note: At the time, McCaughey was a fellow at the Manhattan Institute] and writer Betsy McCaughey as part of the input to the three-part expose in The New Republic on what the Clinton plan means to you. The first part detailed specifics of the plan."

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• Meet Your Neighbors: Glade Park woman not afraid to speak her mind 

A river brought Anne Landman to Grand Junction. . . .

Landman began working in 1996 for the American Lung Association.

That job heightened Landman's awareness of tobacco-caused diseases and she began noticing cigarette displays in stores — how they always seemed to be out of the line of sight of clerks, placed around the corner near the door and below counter level.

“I started asking clerks: ‘Do you lose merchandise off these displays?'” Landman said.

She said store clerks used words like “tons” and “gobs” to describe the amount of merchandise that was lost. However, they weren't allowed to move the tobacco products display, or they'd lose huge placement fees paid by the tobacco companies.

Clerks in stores all over Grand Junction — many near schools — told Landman that tobacco representatives came and monitored the placements.

A manager of one Stop N Save convenience store near a school in Clifton told Landman she was losing 300 packs a month. Store clerks told Landman it was mostly kids stealing the cigarettes. . . .

Companies were also required to reveal all their secret documents. Millions of pages of internal documents were scanned and placed on the Internet for public access.

In her spare time at home in Glade Park where she had a dial-up connection to the Internet, Landman began downloading tobacco industry documents.

“I was looking for something in the documents to substantiate what I found on the ground,” Landman said.

“I couldn't believe what I saw. I couldn't believe what I was reading. It was like a murder mystery novel with no ending. Confidential memos talked about strategies for undermining public health authorities.”

Landman gathered the information and began putting it on an Internet list serve (similar to an e-mail newsletter). She summarized documents and included excerpts. She began writing and publishing articles in medical and academic journals. . . .

One of her Grand Junction colleagues contacted CBS news in New York, who sent a four-person crew to Grand Junction to report on the tobacco displays and the placement fees for its “Eye on America” segment that was broadcast nationally April 12, 1999. Television stations around the country checked tobacco products displays in their own towns, and localized the issue to create their own segments.

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• 'Watchdog' advocates for BPA  

Statistical Assessment Service, a major player in the public relations campaign to discredit concerns about bisphenol A, claims to be an independent media watchdog.

But a review of its finances and its Web site shows that STATS is funded by public policy organizations that promote deregulation. The Journal Sentinel found documents that show that its parent organization, the Center for Media and Public Affairs, was paid in the 1990s by Philip Morris, the tobacco company, to pick apart stories critical of smoking.

In June, STATS ran a 27,000-word assessment of the media's coverage of BPA and sharply criticized the coverage - especially stories in the Journal Sentinel - for ignoring the science. . . .

The Journal Sentinel in 2007 reviewed 258 scientific studies involving BPA and found the overwhelming majority determined the chemical to be harmful.

Gina Kolata of The New York Times and the Center for Health Care Journalists linked to the STATS report on their Web sites, identifying the group as a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization.

But documents show that STATS' parent organization has a history of working for corporations trying to deflect concerns about the safety of their products.

STATS and the Center for Media and Public Affairs are run by S. Robert Lichter, a professor of communication at George Mason University. The organizations share the same office and tax records.

Documents from the Tobacco Institute on file at the University of California-San Francisco show that Philip Morris contracted with the Center for Media and Public Affairs at least twice during the 1990s to monitor media coverage of tobacco. A draft dated March 31, 1994, lays out Lichter's proposal to the tobacco company:

"The Center will track and report on two or three case studies, examining all of the source material for claims and then review how the story was covered by the national media."

An e-mail from the Tobacco Institute's files, dated Feb. 18, 1999, quotes Philip Morris vice president Vic Han referring to Lichter's center as "a media watchdog group that we have contributed to over the last several years."

The center, according to the tobacco documents, was paid to conduct an analysis that takes into account the topical focus, sources and tone of presentation of tobacco stories in the media. . . .

Trevor Butterworth, editor of STATS, has become BPA's fiercest advocate. He combs the Internet for stories that raise concern about the chemical, even on the most obscure blogs, and he chastises those who claim BPA can be harmful.

Butterworth offers this advice on a journalism Web site:

"Forget conventional PR! If some bratty journalist gives you a whack, whack back with obscene, jaw dropping disproportion: knee him in the groin, pull what's left of his hair out, tell him he writes in clichés, and misuses the semicolon, and stomp on his iPhone! A hack is like a bully, and charming a bully is a bit like reasoning with a psychopath or writing a novel on Twitter. For the tough cases, go Dada.  . . .  Defending the brand means exacting respect and that will come from fear not charm." . . .

The Journal Sentinel reviewed IRS documents and found the Sarah Scaife Foundation reported giving STATS $100,000 in 2007, an amount that equaled all of STATS' assets - except for $435 in income interest. The Scaife Foundation funds a number of organizations that promote public policy against regulation, including the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute and the Cato Institute.

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Forget conventional PR! If some bratty journalist gives you a whack, whack back with obscene, jaw dropping disproportion: knee him in the groin, pull what's left of his hair out, tell him he writes in clichés, and misuses the semicolon, and stomp on his iPhone! . . . For the tough cases, go Dada.  . . .  Defending the brand means exacting respect and that will come from fear not charm.
Trevor Butterworth, editor of STATS, who combs the Internet for stories that raise concern about BPA, even on the most obscure blogs, and chastises those who claim BPA can be harmful. According to a stellar series of Journal-Sentinel articles, secret tobacco documents reveal that STATS' parent organization is the Center for Media and Public Affairs--paid for in the 1990s by Philip Morris to pick apart stories critical of smoking. Even today, tobacco-related message boards across the country seem vulnerable to this and other techniques that may be deployed by tobacco companies and/or their hirees in this, the new world of Internet PR.

• BPA industry fights back  

For decades, the chemical industry has been able to control the debate on whether BPA is harmful to human health. Now the Food and Drug Administration, which had relied on industry-financed studies to declare the chemical safe, is reconsidering its determination. The decision is expected by Nov. 30.

"We are under attack from all fronts," Carteaux told the audience at the group's annual meeting in June.

And with increasing urgency, the industry is pushing back - hard.

The industry has launched an unprecedented public relations blitz that uses many of the same tactics - and people - the tobacco industry used in its decades-long fight against regulation. This time, the industry's arsenal includes state-of-the-art technology. Their modern-day Trojan horses: blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia and YouTube.

A four-month investigation by the Journal Sentinel reveals a highly calibrated campaign by plastics makers to fight federal regulation of BPA, downplay its risks and discredit anyone who characterizes the chemical as a health threat. The newspaper examined thousands of pages of Internal Revenue Service reports, disclosure forms and e-mails between government scientists and lobbyists as well as the industry's own public relations materials.

The documents offer a rare glimpse at the hardball politics of chemical regulation, where judgments about safety are made not necessarily on the merits of science but because of the clout of lobbyists working the system. . . .

Details of meetings between federal regulators and chemical industry lobbyists are found in the archives of the Tobacco Institute, the lobby group of the tobacco industry. A court settlement in 1998 disbanded the institute and opened the records to the public.

Lobbyists for tobacco closely followed the government's assessment of BPA because of concerns that a ban on the chemical would affect cigarette filters and plastic packaging. The two industries share the same lobby firm, the Weinberg Group.

The Tobacco Institute documents show administrators from the FDA routinely turned to chemical industry scientists to establish the government's safety level for BPA. Government scientists relied on test results performed by industry scientists without independent confirmation. . . .

Chemical makers and plastics industry executives are putting up their own versions of news clips on social media outlets such as YouTube, MySpace, Wikipedia, Twitter and blogs. Often, they are disguised as neutral, unbiased information and rarely reveal the source.

So what might look to consumers researching BPA on the Internet as independent information are often stories written by chemical industry public relations writers.

Allegiances are not always explained. The most impassioned defense of BPA on the blogs comes from Trevor Butterworth, editor of Statistical Assessment Service, also known as STATS. He regularly combs the Internet for stories about BPA and offers comments without revealing his ties to industry. . . .

STATS claims to be independent and nonpartisan. But a review of its financial reports shows it is a branch of the Center for Media and Public Affairs. That group was paid by the tobacco industry to monitor news stories about the dangers of tobacco.

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• Western Australia and the international tobacco industry / "We are still not yet out of the woods in W.A." (PDF) 

It would be hard to find somewhere more remote from the centre of the international tobacco industry than Western Australia. The international tobacco companies active in Australia are controlled from North America and the United Kingdom. One might assume that a state with some two million inhabitants in a sparsely populated country would barely appear on the radar of the tobacco industry's global leaders.

Western Australia has, however, also been at the forefront of tobacco control action in Australia and internationally . . . .

the major focus of document-based research and publications has inevitably been on the United States and other countries where the industry is either located or has been seen as focussing its interests. It is, however, clear that this is a global industry with global concerns, and that its financial well-being rests on the profitability of operations around the world. . . .

Some of the comments and events reported to the industry's global leaders might be equally well placed in a comedy program, for example the 1980s comments of the Western Australian Tobacco Institute Executive Offi cer Ron Berryman, that, "Irrespective of how many children take up smoking in a year, no one is immortal--everyone dies sooner or later", and, in response to the allegation that cigarettes are a cause of cancer, "So are potatoes. Tobacco is in the same family. You inhale the fumes of potatoes when you are cooking them".

But other aspects of the industry's activities border on the sinister. As this report documents, Professor Ragnar Rylander, from the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, who both spent a sabbatical month at The University of Western Australia in 1988, and was viewed in good faith by Western Australian scientists as a respected colleague, was essentially a tobacco industry spy, with a generously-funded consultancy, sending back secret reports to the Philip Morris company in New York on tobacco control developments within Western Australia.

This monograph provides a record of the international tobacco industry's interests in Western Australia over more than three decades. From it we learn much more than simply what the industry did and where its concerns lay. We learn about past strategies and more current concerns, about the tactics adopted by the industry, and about tobacco control measures most likely to cause concern to the major companies as having potential for real impact on smoking in both adults and children. . . .

4.0 Conclusions

It is clear from the available tobacco industry documents that the international tobacco industry has displayed significant levels of interest in WA over many years--since the 1950s.

Tobacco company executives have been most concerned about WA in terms of:

• Restrictions on tobacco advertising and sponsorship

• Taxation of tobacco products

• Health warnings and pack labelling of tobacco products

• Litigation involving tobacco companies or their allies

• Industry funded scientist's visits to WA

• Changes to tobacco control legislation

• Monitoring of health organisations and tobacco control advocates

• Monitoring of politicians and political parties

• Regulation of cigarette ingredients

• Regulations around smoke-free areas

• Public education campaigns

What can be learned from looking back on the tobacco industry's interest in WA?

History and experience show that the tobacco control initiatives contested most vigorously by tobacco companies are those they know will have the greatest impact on their sales and profits. It is encouraging that WA features prominently in industry documents, suggesting that tobacco control initiatives in this State have been successful in focussing on those areas most likely to cause concern to the major companies.

The documents also illustrate the significant concern shown by the industry about the potential for tobacco control initiatives to spread beyond the areas in which they originated. Successful initiatives in WA and other Australian states have been taken up internationally. This is testament to the advocates in WA whose work started some decades ago, to decision makers whose local efforts have had a signifi cant fl ow-on effect, and to the very proper judgement of tobacco company executives that their failures here have led to success elsewhere.

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• “We need something for people to die,” British tobacco industry  

A 1978 document, recently made known, revealed the sleight used during that time by the tobacco industry of the United Kingdom in order to overcome the crisis in the sector before evidence that cigarettes were harmful: "We need something for people to die," said the report.

According to the consulting agency Campbell-Johnson for the British Association of Tobacco (BAT), tobacco consumption was functional for the Government, due to the fact that cancer and other illnesses associated to cigarettes limited "the number of dependent elderly that the economy must maintain."

The document's author recognizes that "obviously" those arguments "cannot be used publicly," but he insists: "with a general increase in life expectancy, we need something for people to die. In replacement of the effects of war, poverty, and hunger, cancer, considered the illness of rich and developed countries, has a role to play."

This idea, considered a "psychological factor in order to continue the taste people have of smoking as something pleasant, although it may be a dangerous habit, should not be under valuated," the document continued. . . .

One of the actions is to promote a code of conduct among smokers that, if followed, "would assure they wouldn't be accused by non-smokers of arrogantly assuming the right to contaminate the air around them."

"Their tone has to be frank and positive," and one of the objectives must be to "restore the smoker's image as an outgoing and sociable person, and not neurotic, smelly, and marginal as the non-smokers think," concluded the report.

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