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• Tobacco industry issues management organizations: Creating a global corporate network to undermine public health (PDF) 

Tobacco Documentation Centre

TDC was founded in 1992 by PM, BAT, RJR, Rothmans, Gallaher and Reemtsma [190]. In 1997, its name was changed to the International Tobacco Documentation Centre, although it continues to use the acronym TDC [191]. It was run by former INFOTAB staff and housed in the former INFOTAB offices in London (INFOTAB had moved into these offices, which were “somewhat difficult to find … by design” [192] in 1988) [193, 194]. But for BAT and PM, TDC was not simply a new INFOTAB. They favored “a very clear and simple definition” of TDC as “an information gathering and dissemination outfit” [193], rather than returning to “business as usual” with a scaled- down INFOTAB, which would send “the wrong signals …both to the outside world and internally” [195]. BAT’s desire to send the right “signals” may have reflected conspiracy charges being leveled at its American subsidiary, Brown and Williamson (BW), in five pending lawsuits in Texas [196]. A “Conspiracy Notebook” assembled by BW/BAT legal consultants noted that INFOTAB might be cited by plaintiffs as evidence that the industry acted in concert to deceive the public about the dangers of smoking [196].

TDC’s functions, therefore, were to be limited to collecting and distributing to members publicly available tobacco-related information [190]. . . .

ATS was established by PM, BAT, RJR, Rothmans, Gallaher and Reemtsma in 1992 to continue INFOTAB’s coordination of the International Tobacco Growers Association’s (ITGA) lobbying activities [217, pp. 227, 230, 297]. ATS staff consisted solely of INFOTAB’s Martin Oldman, who appears to have worked with ITGA since 1988, when INFOTAB undertook the transformation of the “largely ineffectual trade association” (established in 1984) into a powerful agricultural lobby to advance tobacco manufacturers’ arguments regarding the economic importance of tobacco, particularly in developing nations . . .

ICOSI began as a conspiracy among seven tobacco company chief executives to promote internationally the fiction of a “controversy” regarding smoking and disease [15]. It quickly developed into a multi-million dollar global organization with a new name, expanding membership, and a broader mandate. Relying on a network of centralized staff, member company senior personnel, consultants, lawyers, and NMAs, ICOSI’s successor, INFOTAB, operated as an anti-WHO. Its mission was to systematically thwart public health by globalizing “doubt” not only about smoking and disease, but also about the economic costs of tobacco, the social costs of smoking, the motivations of tobacco control advocates, the relationship between smoking and advertising, and the need for smoking restrictions. Where it succeeded, INFOTAB unquestionably facilitated the spread of the global tobacco disease epidemic.

INFOTAB also created and served as the nucleus of a world tobacco community.

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