Tobacco industry playbook

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
tobacco industry lobbyists to Dutch politician Kartika Liotard
in September 2013

The tobacco industry playbook, tobacco strategy or simply disinformation playbook

fossil fuel industry. It is possible that the playbook may even have originated with the oil industry.[3][4]

A 1969 R. J. Reynolds internal memorandum noted, "Doubt is our product since it is the best means of competing with the 'body of fact' that exists in the mind of the general public."[5]

In

climate change denialism promoted by the fossil fuel industry:[7][8] the same tactics were employed by fossil fuel groups such as the American Petroleum Institute to cast doubt on climate science from the 1990s[9] and some of the same PR firms and individuals engaged to claim that tobacco smoking was safe, were later recruited to attack climate science.[10]

History

The strategy was initiated at a crisis meeting between US tobacco executives and John Hill, of public relations company Hill & Knowlton, at the New York Plaza Hotel, in 1953, following the Reader's Digest's précis of an article from the Christian Herald titled "Cancer by the Carton", highlighting the emergent findings of epidemiologists including Richard Doll and Austin Bradford Hill.[11] It led to the 1954 publication of A Frank Statement, an advertisement designed to cast doubt on the science showing serious health effects from smoking.

Tactics included:[12]

Documents such as Bad Science: A Resource Book were used to promulgate talking points intended to cast doubt on scientific independence and political interference.[13][10]

Influence

Further information: Climate change denial

The playbook has been adopted by the fossil fuel industry, in its efforts to stave off global action on climate change,

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) more generally.[14] The manufacture and promotion of uncertainty, especially, has been identified as inspired directly by the tobacco industry.[6][15]

Recognising that it had little or no credibility with the public, and concerned about mounting pressure to act on

junkscience.com, a website which equates environmentalists with Nazis and now promotes climate change denial.[16] Many of the consultants who worked for the tobacco industry, have also worked for fossil fuel companies against action on climate change. TASSC hired Frederick Seitz and Fred Singer, both now prominent in climate change denial.[16] Greg Zimmerman found a 2015 presentation titled "Survival Is Victory: Lessons From the Tobacco Wars" by Richard Reavey of Cloud Peak Energy (and formerly of Philip Morris) in which Reavey explicitly acknowledged the parallels and urged fellow coal executives to accept the facts of climate change and work with regulators on solutions that would preserve the industry.[17][18] Both Fred Singer and Frederick Seitz are prominent figures in climate change denial who previously worked for the tobacco industry.[19][16]

Environmentalist

Frontiers of Freedom Institute, the Reason Foundation, the Independent Institute, and George Mason University's Law and Economics Centre.[16]

Opponents of

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programs as a PR strategy.[25] Research contracts issued as part of CSR programmes allow soft drinks manufacturers to bury inconvenient results.[26]

A 2019 article in the Emory Law Journal made parallels to attempts by the

New York Times noting a number of tobacco figures involved in the NFL's defence.[28]

The World Health Organization has subsequently published a tobacco control playbook.[29]

The public relations strategies of Big Tech companies have often been compared with the tobacco industry playbook.[30][31][further explanation needed]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c "The Disinformation Playbook". Union of Concerned Scientists. Archived from the original on 2020-04-21. Retrieved 2020-04-09.
  2. ^ Rowell, Andrew; Evans-Reeves, Karen. "It was Big Tobacco, not Trump, that wrote the post-truth rule book". The Conversation. Retrieved 2020-04-09.
  3. ClimateWire – via Scientific American. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help
    )
  4. ^ "New Documents Reveal Denial Playbook Originated with Big Oil, Not Big Tobacco" (Press release). Center for International Environmental Law. June 20, 2016. Archived from the original on June 25, 2020. Retrieved April 9, 2020.
  5. OCLC 42855812
    .
  6. ^
    OCLC 461631066
    .
  7. ISSN 1748-9326
    .
  8. ISSN 0261-3077. Archived
    from the original on 2020-09-25. Retrieved 2020-04-09.
  9. ^ Pooley, Eric (14 February 2017). "Climate Change Denial Is the Original Fake News". Time Magazine. Retrieved 2020-04-09.
  10. ^
    ISSN 0261-3077. Archived
    from the original on 2019-05-29. Retrieved 2020-04-09.
  11. ^ Stobbe, Mike (5 January 2014). "Historic smoking report marks 50th anniversary". USA Today. Archived from the original on 2017-09-02. Retrieved 2020-04-09.
  12. PMID 19298423
    .
  13. ^ "Bad Science: a Resource Book". Tobacco Industry Documents Library. Archived from the original on 2020-03-26. Retrieved 2020-04-09.
  14. ^ a b Johns, David Merritt; Levy, Karen. "How Trump's war on science is borrowing from the tobacco industry playbook". Washington Post. Archived from the original on 2020-03-12. Retrieved 2020-04-09.
  15. ISSN 0261-3077. Archived
    from the original on 2020-05-24. Retrieved 2020-04-09.
  16. ^
    ISSN 0261-3077. Archived
    from the original on 2007-03-24. Retrieved 2020-04-23.
  17. ISSN 0362-4331
    . Retrieved 2020-04-09.
  18. ClimateWire. Archived from the original on October 7, 2019. Retrieved April 9, 2020. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help
    )
  19. ^ "Climate denier Fred Singer complains about Merchants of Doubt". Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education. Archived from the original on 2019-10-29. Retrieved 2020-04-09.
  20. ^ "How the Vaping Industry Is Using a Defensive Tactic Pioneered Decades Ago by Big Tobacco". Retrieved 2020-04-09.
  21. ISSN 0362-4331
    . Retrieved 2020-04-09.
  22. ^ Desk, Medibulletin (2019-03-15). "Big tobacco bringing same market strategy into sugary drinks". Archived from the original on 2021-10-27. Retrieved 2020-04-23.
  23. ^ "Soft Drink Companies Copy Tobacco Playbook to Lure Young Users". 14 March 2019. Archived from the original on 2020-03-25. Retrieved 2020-04-23. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  24. ISSN 0261-3077. Archived
    from the original on 2020-02-22. Retrieved 2020-04-09.
  25. PMID 22723745
    .
  26. ^ "Contracts give Coca-Cola power to 'quash' health research, study suggests". 2019-05-08. Archived from the original on 2020-08-05. Retrieved 2020-04-23. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  27. ^ Paolini, Mikayla (2019). "NFL Takes a Page from the Big Tobacco Playbook: Assumption of Risk in the CTE Crisis". Emory Law Journal. 68 (3): 607–642.
  28. ISSN 0362-4331
    . Retrieved 2020-04-09.
  29. ^ "Tobacco Control Playbook". World Health Organization. 2020-04-09. Archived from the original on 2020-02-05. Retrieved 2020-04-09.
  30. ^ Macpherson, Lisa (2021-10-29). "Is This Really Big Tech's 'Big Tobacco' Moment? Only Congress Can Make It So". Retrieved 2022-01-12.
  31. S2CID 221995749
    .

External links

External links

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