Tobacco Center Faculty Blog

May 9, 2012

Stanton A. Glantz, PhD

The National Institutes of Health has announced that it is creating a new  "National Institute of Substance Use and Addiction Disorders" and invited public comment on this plan. If done well, this could be an improvement.  If done poorly -- particularly if all tobacco-related work was swept into the new institute -- this plan could do great harm to the tobacco research enterprise.  The public comment period is open until 11:59 PM on Friday May 11.  While the deadline is near, I urge everyone to put in comments on this proposal.

Details of the proposal are at http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-12-045.html, where you can post a comment.

Here is the public comment I submitted:

May 7, 2012

Stanton A. Glantz, PhD

The San Francisco Chronicle just reported that Philip Morris gave Jerry Brown a sizable contribution for his re-election campaign 2 1/2 years from now.

I can think of several reasons that Philip Morris would make such an investment:

1. Brown has allowed tobacco industry No-on-29 spokesphysican LaDonna Porter to continue to served on the Proposition 65 Development and Reproductive Toxicants (DART) committee, despite her consistent work for the tobacco and perchlorate industries.  Maybe Big Tobacco doesn't want the embarrassment of Brown removing her from the committee.

2. Brown has not taken a position on Proposition 29.  Maybe Big Tobacco wants to keep him quiet on the issue.

April 26, 2012

Stanton A. Glantz, PhD

Her work fronting for the tobacco industry in its' advertising against California's Proposition 29 is not Dr. LaDonna Porter's first work promoting a toxic industry.  (You the ad she made for the tobacco companies by clicking here.)

According to the Wall Street Journal, she fronted for the chemical industry a decade ago in opposing strict regulation of percholarte, a water pollutant that has particularly bad effects on infants.  Here is the key part of the story:

"The furor the EPA had stirred was soon evident at a gathering known as a peer-review workshop, where a panel of scientists discussed the proposal. The workshop took place in early 2002 in Sacramento, near the site of decades of groundwater perchlorate pollution from an Aerojet missile factory.

April 22, 2012

Stanton A. Glantz, PhD

The California Taxpayers Association (CalTax) and the California Hispanic Chambers of Commerce, which signed the "No on 29" ballot arguments have long histories of working with the cigarette companies, including "donations" from Philip Morris over the years.

You can see the documents in the Legacy Tobacco Documents Library on them by clicking on these links for CalTax and California Hispanic Chambers of Commerce.

April 19, 2012

Stanton A. Glantz, PhD

Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds (and a few pals) have started their media blitz against Proposition 29, the initiative to be voted on this June that would increase the cigarette tax by $1 and allocate the money to reinvigorate Californian's anti-smoking program and fund medical research on cancer and other tobacco-induced diseases.  What is amazing is how little has changed since voters saw through Big Tobacco's lies in 1988 and passed Proposition 99 that changed the world of tobacco control by creating the California Tobacco Control Program.

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