Deadly Industry: Challenging Big Tobacco
Tobacco Control Research Group, University of Bath
Recent Episodes
Welcome to season two of Deadly Industry: Challenging Big Tobacco, the podcast where we explore the tactics used by the tobacco industry as it pursues profit over health.
For this special international episode, Louis speaks with global tobacco expert Dr. Gan Quan and in-country experts Lisa Lennartsdotter Ermann, Daniel Dorado and Dr. Ulysses Dorotheo about how Big Tobacco tailors its interference tactics across different regions of the world. They unpick how this deadly industry co-ordinates its efforts around the globe to stop the implementation of tobacco control policy and how it co-opts tobacco control successes to promote its products.
Gan Quan, PhD, is Senior Vice President at Vital Strategies, where he leads the Tobacco Control Division, comprising a global team working with governments and civil society partners around the world to reduce tobacco use, the leading preventive cause of deaths worldwide.
Lisa Lennartsdotter Ermann is a public health expert working in tobacco prevention at The Swedish Cancer Society. Her background covers working with strategic prevention at Public Health Agency of Sweden, with tobacco cessation at the Swedish Quitline and communication about alcohol, drugs and tobacco with young people at The Swedish Council for Information on Alcohol and Other Drugs.
Daniel Dorado is a human rights activist and lawyer specializing in global health law, constitutional law, corporate accountability and liability of transnational corporations, tobacco control, administrative law, and consumer law. With more than 10 years of experience, he currently serves as Tobacco Campaign Director at Corporate Accountability.
Dr. Ulysses (Yul) Dorotheo currently serves as the Executive Director of the Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (SEATCA), an accredited NGO observer to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.
Sources used in this episode include:
- https://corporateaccountability.org/resources/executive-summary-estereo-picnic
- https://www.cancerfonden.se/om-oss/about-us/swedens-road-to-reduced-tobacco-smoking
Note: In Lisa Lennartsdotter Ermann's case study about the Swedish Experience, the tobacco use statistic quoted refers to tobacco smoking and does not include tobacco snus use.
Deadly Industry: Challenging Big Tobacco is a weekly podcast from the Tobacco Control Research Group at the University of Bath. It is hosted by Louis Laurence, produced by Kate White and edited by Sacha Goodwin. The production manager is Jacqueline Oliver.
To get in touch, e-mail us at [email protected] or find us on LinkedIn, Bluesky and X. Find more episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/deadly-industry-challenging-big-tobacco
The views expressed in this episode by the podcast participants (host and guests) are their own and do not reflect the views of the University of Bath or any other affiliate groups.
For information on the Tobacco Control Research Group's funding sources please read the following statement: www.bath.ac.uk/corporate-information/centre-for-21st-century-public-health-statement-on-funding-sources
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Welcome to season two of Deadly Industry: Challenging Big Tobacco, the podcast where we explore the tactics used by the tobacco industry as it pursues profit over health.
In the penultimate episode of season two, Dr Tess Legg and Dr Alice Fabbri chat with Louis about conflicts of interest in science. They break down how commercial funding of researchers can bias scientific research, why commercial actors seek to influence science and how to protect scientific processes and outputs from manipulation by implementing policies, delivering training and changing how science is funded.
Dr Alice Fabbri is a public health physician whose work focuses on conflicts of interest and commercial influences on health. Alice's work has contributed to the definition and conceptualisation of the Commercial Determinants of Health and to developing educational interventions on conflicts of interest and corporate influence on science.
Dr Tess Legg is a research associate in the Tobacco Control Research Group who specialises on understanding how and why corporate actors seek to influence science. Tess’s work explores ways to ensure science works for the public good and contributes to the emerging fields of the commercial determinants of health (CDoH) and agnotology (the study of culturally-induced ignorance or doubt).
Sources used in this episode include:
- https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0253272
- https://doi.org/10.1093/heapro/daaf059
- https://doi.org/10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2020-056003
- https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(24)01032-8
- https://blogs.bath.ac.uk/pvc-research/2024/04/10/trusted-research-some-reflections/
Deadly Industry: Challenging Big Tobacco is a weekly podcast from the Tobacco Control Research Group at the University of Bath. It is hosted by Louis Laurence, produced by Kate White and edited by Sacha Goodwin. The production manager is Jacqueline Oliver.
Around 29.00 Tess makes reference to the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World (FSFW). As of May 2024 this organisation has been renamed Global Action to End Smoking (GAES).
To get in touch, e-mail [email protected] or find us on LinkedIn, Bluesky and X. More episodes: https://shows.acast.com/deadly-industry-challenging-big-tobacco
The views expressed in this episode by the podcast participants (host and guests) are their own and do not reflect the views of the University of Bath or any other affiliate groups.
For information on the Tobacco Control Research Group's funding sources please read the following statement: www.bath.ac.uk/corporate-information/centre-for-21st-century-public-health-statement-on-funding-sources.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Welcome to season two of Deadly Industry: Challenging Big Tobacco, the podcast where we explore the tactics used by the tobacco industry as it pursues profit over health.
Leslie Rae Ferat and Dr Allen Gallagher join Louis in episode 6 to speak in-depth on the WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control’s Conference of the Parties (COP) and Meeting of the Parties (MOP). They discuss what actually happens at these international treaty-signing events, the role played by civil society, how Big Tobacco tries to interfere and what might be on the agenda at the next COP and MOP in November 2025.
Leslie Rae Ferat is Executive Director of the Global Alliance for Tobacco Control (formerly Framework Convention Alliance for Tobacco Control), a global network of civil society organisations working towards a world-free from the health, social and economic consequences of tobacco and tobacco use. She is currently President of the NCD Alliance, a member of the WCTC Content Committee and the WHO Civil Society Working Group on NCDs.
Dr Allen Gallagher is Co-Director of the Tobacco Control Research Group (TCRG) at the University of Bath. While interested in various issues related to tobacco control and commercial determinants of health, Allen’s primary research focus to date has been to explore contemporary tobacco industry involvement in the illicit tobacco trade and related policy.
Sources:
- Eleventh Session of the Conference of the Parties
- Fourth session of the Meeting of the Parties
- https://doi.org/10.1093/heapro/daae038
- https://gatc-int.org/progress-and-challenges-after-cop10-and-mop3/
- https://www.tobaccotactics.org/article/tii-cop/
- Bulletins – COP10 – Global Alliance for Tobacco Control (GATC)
Deadly Industry: Challenging Big Tobacco is a weekly podcast from the Tobacco Control Research Group at the University of Bath. It is hosted by Louis Laurence, produced by Kate White and edited by Sacha Goodwin. The production manager is Jacqueline Oliver.
To get in touch, e-mail [email protected] or find us on LinkedIn, Bluesky and X. More episodes: https://shows.acast.com/deadly-industry-challenging-big-tobacco
The views expressed in this episode by the podcast participants (host and guests) are their own and do not reflect the views of the University of Bath or any other affiliate groups.
For information on the Tobacco Control Research Group's funding sources please read the following statement: www.bath.ac.uk/corporate-information/centre-for-21st-century-public-health-statement-on-funding-sources.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Welcome to season two of Deadly Industry: Challenging Big Tobacco, the podcast where we explore the tactics used by the tobacco industry as it pursues profit over health.
It's episode five and Louis welcomes Dr. Iona Fitzpatrick to the studio to discuss the transformative power of language. They explore how the tobacco industry tells stories to manage its public image, why its claims to be a good partner in public health are not all they seem and the difference between how the industry talks to the public versus how it communicates to its investors.
Dr Iona Fitzpatrick is a public health researcher at the University of Bath with an interest in linguistics and place. Her current research includes analysis of industry language and associated impacts on health policy implementation.
Sources used in this episode include:
- doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0000379
- doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.958354
- How big tobacco firms are using e-cigarettes to try to improve their image - The Conversation
- doi.org/10.1093/ntr/ntad181
- doi.org/10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2021-056687
- Astroturfing - Tobacco Tactics
- doi.org/10.1136/tc-2023-058511
Deadly Industry: Challenging Big Tobacco is a weekly podcast from the Tobacco Control Research Group at the University of Bath. It is hosted by Louis Laurence, produced by Kate White and edited by Sacha Goodwin. The production manager is Jacqueline Oliver.
To get in touch, e-mail us at [email protected] or find us on LinkedIn, Bluesky and X. Find more episodes here: https://shows.acast.com/deadly-industry-challenging-big-tobacco
The views expressed in this episode by the podcast participants (host and guests) are their own and do not reflect the views of the University of Bath or any other affiliate groups.
For information on the Tobacco Control Research Group's funding sources please read the following statement: www.bath.ac.uk/corporate-information/centre-for-21st-century-public-health-statement-on-funding-sources
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Welcome to season two of Deadly Industry: Challenging Big Tobacco, the podcast where we explore the tactics used by the tobacco industry as it pursues profit over health.
This week, Louis is joined by Dr. Amber van den Akker and Dr. Nason Maani to discuss multistakeholderism - when the public sector collaborates with other sectors, including industry, to address issues of public importance. They examine why health-harming industries want a seat at the policy-making table, the implications of this on public health policy and where the tobacco industry fits in to all this.
Dr Amber van den Akker is a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Bath’s Centre for 21st Century Public Health. She works as part of the Local Health and Global Profit research consortium. Her research explores pathways to address the commercial determinants of health, using a complex systems approach, with a focus on governance and the policy-making process.
Dr Nason Maani is a Senior Lecturer in Inequalities and Global Health Policy at the University of Edinburgh’s Global Health Policy Unit. His research focuses on the commercial determinants of health, seeking to describe the mechanisms through which commercial actors affect health inequalities, knowledge, and public discourse. Nason is the host of Money Power Health, a podcast series discussing the social and commercial forces that shape health.
Sources used in this episode include:
- https://doi.org/10.1093/heapro/daae165
- https://doi.org/10.1093/heapro/daae139
- https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-024-10593-0
- https://doi.org/10.34172/ijhpm.2024.8245
- https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.q800
- https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0009.12368
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2022.102380
Deadly Industry: Challenging Big Tobacco is a weekly podcast from the Tobacco Control Research Group at the University of Bath. It is hosted by Louis Laurence, produced by Kate White and edited by Sacha Goodwin. The production manager is Jacqueline Oliver.
To get in touch, e-mail us at [email protected] or find us on LinkedIn, Bluesky and X. Find more episodes here.
The views expressed in this episode by the podcast participants (host and guests) are their own and do not reflect the views of the University of Bath or any other affiliate groups.
For information on the Tobacco Control Research Group's funding sources please read the following statement: www.bath.ac.uk/corporate-information/centre-for-21st-century-public-health-statement-on-funding-sources
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.