Questions about Tobacco industry playbook
Short answers, pulled from the story.
What is the tobacco industry playbook?
The tobacco industry playbook is a public relations strategy that tobacco companies developed in the 1950s to cast doubt on scientific evidence linking smoking to serious illness. Rather than proving their product was safe, the strategy was designed to keep the public uncertain. A 1969 R. J. Reynolds memorandum described the goal directly: "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."
When did the tobacco industry develop its disinformation playbook?
Tobacco companies formalized the playbook after 1953, when Reader's Digest published findings by epidemiologists Richard Doll and Austin Bradford Hill linking smoking to cancer. US tobacco executives and John Hill of Hill & Knowlton met at the New York Plaza Hotel, leading to the 1954 publication of A Frank Statement, an advertisement designed to undermine the science. Similar tactics had been used by the oil industry beginning in the 1920s to promote the use of tetraethyllead in gasoline.
What tactics does the tobacco industry playbook include?
The tobacco industry playbook includes seven distinct tactics. These range from fabricating scientific research and attacking inconvenient scientists to manufacturing "fear, uncertainty and doubt," political lobbying, and astroturfing through front groups that falsely claimed to represent grassroots opinion. A document called "Bad Science: A Resource Book" was used to circulate these talking points.
What was TASSC and how did it relate to the tobacco industry playbook?
TASSC, the Advancement of Sound Science Coalition, was a fake grassroots organization created by Philip Morris through the consultancy APCO. Its first director, Steve Milloy, later founded junkscience.com, a website that equates environmentalists with Nazis and promotes climate change denial. Frederick Seitz and Fred Singer, both later prominent in climate change denial, were also recruited by TASSC.
What organizations were funded by both the tobacco industry and fossil fuel companies according to George Monbiot?
Environmentalist George Monbiot identified eight organizations funded first by tobacco companies and later by Exxon and other fossil fuel firms, all of which actively participated in climate change denial. They include the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Cato Institute, The Heritage Foundation, the Hudson Institute, the Frontiers of Freedom Institute, the Reason Foundation, the Independent Institute, and George Mason University's Law and Economics Centre.
What industries beyond tobacco have used the tobacco industry playbook?
The tobacco industry playbook has been identified in the fossil fuel industry's campaigns against climate science, in the e-cigarette industry's response to health concerns, and in soft drinks companies' resistance to regulatory action. A 2019 article in the Emory Law Journal drew parallels to the National Football League's efforts to downplay chronic traumatic encephalopathy, and the public relations strategies of major technology companies have also been compared to the playbook.