The tobacco industry’s 'transformation' narrative: a barrier to the tobacco endgame

Introduction: The tobacco industry, driven by a number of major transnational companies, continues to perpetuate the tobacco epidemic, as demonstrated by the astounding market value of these companies. However, despite the industry’s continued profitability and scale, it is increasingly coming under threat. Smoking prevalence is dropping and tobacco control policy is continuing to expand globally, with tobacco endgame policy measures now being explored in numerous countries. This confe­rence contribution summarised contemporary research on tobacco industry activities to explore how the industry has tried to respond to these challenges.
Material and methods: An overview of multiple research outputs using evidence from over two decades of tobacco industry monitoring, including analysis of internal industry documents and cigarettes shipment and sales data. Primary publications featured are “Evaluating tobacco industry ‘transformation’: a proposed rubric and analysis” by Edwards et al., “Understanding the long-term policy influence strategies of the tobacco industry: two contemporary case studies” by Hird et al., and “Analysis of Philip Morris International’s ‘aspirational” target for its 2025 cigarette shipments’ by Mehegan et al.
Results: Research has provided a detailed overview of how the industry has responded to an increasingly challenging policy environment for tobacco. Tobacco companies argue that tobacco control policies will lead to wholly negative outcomes while simultaneously claiming to be part of a transforming industry that wants to move away from tobacco. Key tactics to promote this narrative include redefining terminology originally associated with the public health community (eg. harm reduction), controlling data and science via industry funding, and the use of industry affiliated third parties to make the industry’s messaging appear more credible. Tobacco company claims of moving away from cigarettes have been tested in academic literature and found to be unsubstantiated. Rather than seeing evidence of industry transformation away from harmful products, tobacco companies continue to invest in combustibles, while also expanding into other areas where there is the potential for the industry to profit from addiction.
Conclusions: There is a need to denormalise the industry as a counter to its transformation claims, and to ensure that policy processes are protected from the continued vested interests of the industry, through improved implementation of WHO FCTC Article 5.3. Governments should also explore more targeted policy measures that directly address industry strategies that have been successful so far. One idea proposed in existing literature, for instance, would be to explore methods of funding independent science in order to counter the industry putting large sums of money toward manipulating science (Legg et al., 2021).

DISCLOSURE

The author reports no conflict of interest.

Dr. Allen Gallagher is a research fellow within the Tobacco Control Research Group within the University of Bath. While his initial research focus was investigating the illicit tobacco trade and the relationship that major transnational tobacco companies have with it, in recent years he has expanded his research focus to explore tobacco industry influence over tobacco control policy, more broadly.