When Derek Yach launched the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World, on September 13 2017, with a $80 million per year funding by Philip Morris International for 12 years, starting in 2018, I was stunned by the immediate level and tone of the opposition expressed by a number of prominent tobacco control advocates (ie Simon Chapman, Matt Myers, Stan Glantz) and the World Health Organization while all of them were aware of Derek's huge past contributions and commitment to tobacco control.
I never doubted Derek's commitment to tobacco control (I had first met him when he was the organizer of the first All Africa Conference on Tobacco Control in Harare in November 1993) and I have been taken aback by the fact his credentials and record were ignored or dismissed by people blinded by the deal made with PMI. Of course Derek explained his intent was for this new Foundation to be completely independent but that was not taken seriously by any of his critics.
I was very curious to read the details of Derek's journey in his soon to be published book Project Unthinkable. The book is now available since November 10, 2018, but I doubt it got any serious review nor many readers. Derek details his professional and personal journey, including the creation of the Foundation but there is nothing about how it went since then.
In a previous life, when I was managing the French National Committee for Tobacco Control (from 1991 to 1997), I initiated and supervised more than 100 lawsuits against the tobacco industry and we were able to obtain punitive damages from the tobacco companies we sued (mostly for illegal advertising). This money was extracted by litigation but it was still tobacco money although I would say it was smoker's money that transited through the tobacco companies. I never felt the origin of this funding had any influence on our work although I think the state bureaucracy was sometimes (often) upset by the relative independence this funding was giving us, beyond the limited funding we received from the Health Ministry and the Social Security Administration. I know some people disagree with this point of view but I wish they would take one minute (or more) to consider our record in tobacco control before dismissing us as traitors to the cause.
It looks like there is still huge underfunding in the tobacco control field. The PMI millions would represent almost as much as the funding provided in the last ten years by Bloomberg and Gates philanthropies, so it is a very significant (understatement) influx of funding.
Can we trust Derek to effectively manage this huge funding independently of PMI to promote harm reduction?
I do. As I mentioned, I first met Derek in 1993, in Harare, during the first African tobacco control conference he had organized. He had already been an advocate for many years, since he was a medical student in Cape Town in the 70s. Factor in all his work for making the Framework Convention happen and I think the least he deserves is time to be judged on his work not be condemned even before anything happens. He deserves this presumption of innocence.
As for the harm reduction strategy he supports, based on the growth of e-cigarettes, I also believe it deserves a fair hearing as e-cigs health benefits compared to combustible cigarettes appear very significant. This last point is vehemently disputed by the most vocal critics but the data and the scientific evidence is not clear against e-cigs: it's rather the opposite. So there is definitely a need to try to clarify this situation and not dismiss off the bat products already adopted by many smokers who are adamant they make them healthier, a point of view that is also shared by a fair number of health professionals (see for instance the May 26 2014 letter sent to Margaret Chan).
I am a newcomer to this debate but I hope the cyberinterview format that I had used in the previous 180 rendez-vous can be of help in figuring out what's going on and what's the right thing to do although until now I have been unable to have people representing the opposing view accept to talk about it with me.
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