On April 1st 2020, Derek Yach started the Global Health Perspectives Podcast
As of September 30, 2020 he has hosted 29 sessions, listed below.
At the beginning of podcast #20, posted on June 29, the podcast producer, Evan Hahn announced (for the first and only time): "At the top of the show I want to get a quick disclaimer out of the way: All the scientists, doctors and public health experts that are interviewed on this show do so voluntarily and without any financial incentive. We neither endorse, nor particularly comments that are made by our guests (sic) but we encourage an open dialogue from all perspectives. That said if you have any questions or comments about the production process, please reach out to us at podcast at smokefreeworld.org ". I did reach out on July 1st about the lack of disclosure of financial ties between the podcast guests and the FSFW but I have not received an answer (yet). By September 17, Derek started to mention on the site such links when they exist but without providing the amounts involved and not within the podcast itself , from the get go as that would be the most appropriate(see update below).
I understand the mention of the absence of financial incentive for the interview per se but I think it is worth noticing that 13 of the guests are Foundation's grantees, while they also include 4 members of the board of directors who are compensated (if they have been serving for a certain period of time), 3 Foundation's employees ( including Derek) and 2 contractors: all have financial ties with the Foundation if not financial incentives. Those, often substantial financial ties are not systematically disclosed (for details see the list below).
By September 30, on the 29 guests, I found only 6 without such links (that I was able to assess).
What is the audience of the podcasts? I have only looked at Soundcloud where (for now) the program has 16
'followers' (subscribers): 14 episodes had less than 100 listeners, 4 had between 100 and 150, 2 between 150 and 200, and 2 more than 200. Maybe there are more on the other platforms (Spotify, iTunes)... Why not disclosing that a guest is a recipient of one or several grants from the Foundation? Why such secrecy? There is
an ongoing controversy about how effective or eventually negative disclosing potential 'conflicts of interest' is. In this present case I only think it would be normal for host and guest to acknowledge/disclose their eventual relationship and even expand/explain about it. I believe everybody would gain and learn from such a transparent approach. Avoiding the issue, as presently done by Derek and the Foundation negatively impact their credibility, sustains inconsistent and incomplete information on the various outlets of the Foundation, gives credit to the power of their adversaries. What is there to fear, but fear itself?
Rereading FD Roosevelt's address now is indeed most appropriate.
Update: starting with the episode 28 with Daniel Malan (September 17) and then with episode 29 with Sudanshu Patwardhan (September 30), Derek mentions on the site the existence of grants awarded to the guests but not the amounts. He does not appear to mention it during the interview (at least at the very start of each podcast).