The tobacco industry playbook, tobacco strategy or simply disinformation playbook^[1] describes a strategy devised by the tobacco industry in the 1950s to protect revenues in the face of mounting evidence of links between tobacco smoke and serious illnesses, primarily cancer.^[2] Much of the playbook is known from industry documents made public by whistleblowers or as a result of the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement. These documents are now curated by the UCSF Truth Tobacco Industry Documents project and are a primary source for much commentary on both the tobacco playbook and its similarities to the tactics used by other industries, notable the fossil fuel industry. It is possible that the playbook may even have originated with the oil industry.^[3][4]

A 1969 R. J. Reynolds internal memo noted:

Doubt is our product since it is the best means of competing with the ‘body of fact’ that exists in the mind of the general public

— R. J. Reynolds internal memorandum, via The Guardian^[5]

In Merchants of Doubt, Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway documented the way that tobacco companies had campaigned over several decades to cast doubt on the scientific evidence of harm caused by their products, and noted the same techniques being used by other industries whose harmful products were targets of regulatory and environmental efforts.^[6] This is often linked to climate change denialism promoted by the fossil fuel industry:^[5] the same tactics were employed by fossil fuel groups such as the American Petroleum Institute to cast doubt on climate science from the 1990s.^[7] Some of the same individuals who claimed that tobacco smoking was safe, later attacked climate science.^[8]

History

The strategy was initiated at a crisis meeting between US tobacco executives and John Hill, of public relations company Hill & Knowlton, at the New York Plaza Hotel, in 1953, following the Reader's Digest's precis of an article from the Christian Herald titled cancer by the carton, highlighting the emergent findings of epidemiologists including Richard Doll and Austin Bradford Hill.^[9] It led to the 1954 publication of A Frank Statement, an advertisement designed to cast doubt on the science showing serious health effects from smoking.

Tactics included:^[10]

• "Fear, uncertainty and doubt", including funding studies designed to undermine scientific consensus on the health effects of tobacco and characterising findings of harm as "junk science";
• Astroturfing;
• Lobbying and political talking points;
• Emphasising self-regulation and personal responsibility.

Documents such as Bad Science: A Resource Book^[11] were used to promulgate talking points including:^[12]

• Too often, science is manipulated to fulfil a political agenda.
• Government agencies, too often, betray the public trust by violating principles of good science in a desire to achieve a political goal.
• No agency is more guilty of adjusting science to support preconceived public poliocy prescriptions than the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

The playbook has been adopted by the fossil fuel industry, in its efforts to stave off global action on climate change,^[11] and by those seeking to undermine the Environmental Protection Agency.^[13] The manufacture and promotion of uncertainty, especially, has been identified as inspired directly by the tobacco industry.^[6][14] Many of the consultants who worked for the tobacco industry, have also worked for fossil fuel companies against action on climate change. Greg Zimmerman found a 2015 presentation titled "Survival Is Victory: Lessons From the Tobacco Wars" by Richard Reavey of Cloud Peak Energy (and formerly of Philip Morris) in whihc Reavey explicitly acknowledged the parallels and urged fellow coal executives to accept the facts of climate change and work with regulators on solutions that would preserve the industry.^[15][16] Both Fred Singer and Frederick Seitz are prominent figures in climate change denial who previously worked for the tobacco industry.^[17][18]

Opponents of vaping also identify elements of the tobacco playbook in the e-cigarette industry's response to health concerns.^[19][20] Parallels have also been drawn with the soft drinks industry's attempts to avoid government action to reduce consumption of their products over concerns of childhood obesity,^[21] and with attempts by the National Football League to downplay the issue of CTE in football,^[22] with the New York Times noting a number of tobacco figures involved in the NFL's defence.^[23]

The World Health Organisation has subsequently published a tobacco control playbook.^[24]

References

• Nuccitelli, Dana (2017-08-23). "Harvard scientists took Exxon's challenge; found it using the tobacco playbook". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2020-04-09.
• https://www.pulitzer.org/files/finalists/2013/chictrib2013/chictrib03.pdf
• https://www.michigan.gov/documents/mdhhs/MDHHS-New_Generation_Tobacco_Products_presentation_634937_7.pdf

External links

• Cancer by the carton