News

Tobacco Slave is a new film from the University of Bath’s Dr Roy Maconachie and Simon Wharf, in collaboration with the Tobacco Control Research Group (TCRG). The film begins in Bristol, home to tobacco giant Imperial Brands and a city with significant historical links to the transatlantic slave trade. It then moves to Malawi, sharing the stories…

New TobaccoTactics entries highlight products launched by the two largest transnational tobacco companies Philip Morris International (PMI) and British American Tobacco (BAT) designed to be used with their heated tobacco devices, IQOS and glo. PMI’s product LEVIA, made with a “non-tobacco substrate”, was trialled in Indonesia. BAT’s product veo, made with Rooibos tea leaves, is on sale…

Philip Morris International (PMI) has terminated its longstanding funding pledge agreement with the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World (FSFW), an organisation that recent TCRG research described as a an “industry-influenced scientific lobby group”. PMI has given FSFW a final lump sum payment of $US122.5 million,…

For the first time ever, a new paper from the Tobacco Control Research Group maps the global reach of the supply chain of major global cigarette brands, from farm to factory. The research suggests that the presence of global tobacco and tobacco leaf companies’ growing and manufacturing subsidiaries, has a direct impact on the degree to which the industry interferes…

A new brief from STOP discusses how tobacco makes inequality worse. It cites research from Tobacconomics, at the University of Illinois Chicago, which “shows that tobacco taxes are an effective tool to promote equity because they reduce tobacco use, particularly among people with lower income”. It also includes evidence indicating that tobacco taxes do not lead to…

A new paper from the Tobacco Control Research Group explores how the tobacco industry responds to tax increases in 12 African countries, by adopting pricing strategies such as overshifting and undershifting while passing tax increases over to consumers. The researchers considered the individual tobacco companies, the type of producer,  including transnationals and domestic companies, and the…

Data on biomarkers (measures of processes happening in the body) are fundamental to assessing the potential health risks of heated tobacco products (HTPs). Yet, biomarker data from clinical studies on HTPs, most of which were conducted by the tobacco industry, provide limited insight into the lung cancer risks posed by HTPs, according to a new review. The review, published…

In May 2023 the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World (FSFW) published its 2022 tax return. STOP and TCRG analysis found that, as in previous years, the vast majority of grant funding goes to high-income countries, despite FSFW claiming to focus on low and middle-income countries. Financial contributions to FSFW from Philip Morris International (PMI), the sole funder, have…

A new review by TCRG researchers published in Globalization and Health brings together the existing literature on the countering of tobacco industry interference. Based on 30 peer-reviewed studies covering five WHO regions, it suggests that tobacco control advocates engage in a wide range of activities when countering tobacco industry interference, which are summarised in the paper under five key…

A comment piece by Sonia Sodhar in The Observer on Sunday noted that the public health messaging on e-cigarettes is “further mired by the involvement of the tobacco industry”. This article signposts the TobaccoTactics E-cigarettes page, which in turn links to detailed information on each of the ‘big 4’ transnational companies and their interests in these products. See…