Public health experts have accused the tobacco industry of using deception, massive profits and strategic acquisitions to rebrand itself as a public health partner, while continuing to profit from disease and death.
Professor of Respiratory Medicine at Royal Brompton Hospital and Imperial College, Prof Nicholas Hopkinson, described tobacco as “a deadly deception built on lies and misery,” pointing to Philip Morris International’s 2021 takeover of UK pharmaceutical firm Vectura as a disturbing example.
Vectura owns patents for inhaled medicines used to treat asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), illnesses largely caused or worsened by smoking.
“It is deeply troubling that a company whose products cause respiratory disease now owns technology used to treat those same conditions,” Hopkinson said.
He explained that tobacco giants generate $50–60 billion in annual profits largely because they do not pay the estimated $2 trillion yearly social cost of smoking, which includes healthcare, lost productivity and environmental damage.
“That excess profit allows the industry to buy influence, block competitors, control nicotine delivery technologies and clean up its image,” he added.
Experts say the industry’s so-called “harm reduction” narrative masks a long-term strategy to protect nicotine addiction, expand into new inhaled products and sow confusion within the health community, a practice the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control identifies as covert promotion.
In Nigeria and globally, tobacco control advocates warn that pharmaceutical acquisitions are being used to legitimise an industry still responsible for cancer, heart disease and millions of deaths annually.
To confront these tactics, global tobacco control experts, including CAPPA, will host a webinar titled “From ‘Harm Reduction’ to Corporate Capture: How Tobacco Industry Marketing and Pharmaceutical Acquisitions Are Reshaping Public Health Policy.”
Health advocates warn that without firm regulation and vigilance, tobacco-related deaths, projected to reach one billion this century — will continue under a dangerous new disguise.
