Tobacco industry sociological programs to influence public beliefs about smoking

Tobacco industry sociological programs to influence public beliefs about smoking by Anne Landman, Daniel Cortese and Stanton Glantz, Soc Sci Med. 2008 Feb;66(4):970-81

Summary of published paper:

Between the years of 1979 and 1989, the multinational tobacco companies responded to arguments about the social costs of smoking and hazards of secondhand smoke by quietly implementing the Social Costs/Social Values Project. The project relied upon the knowledge and authoritative power of social scientists to construct an alternate cultural understanding of smoking. The industry hired and allied with social scientists from a multitude of persuasions to create and disseminate non-health based, pro-tobacco arguments. The social scientists published this information without fully acknowledging their relationship with the industry. After the US Surgeon General concluded that nicotine was addictive in 1988, the industry responded by forming "Associates for Research in the Science of Enjoyment" (circa 1988-1999), whose members toured the world promoting the health benefits of the use of legal substances, including tobacco, for stress relief and relaxation, also without acknowledging the industry's role. In this paper the authors draw on previously-secret tobacco industry documents, now available on the Internet to show how both of these programs utilized academic sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists, psychologists, philosophers and economists, and allowed the industry to develop and widely disseminate friendly research through credible channels. Strategies the industry used included creating favorable surveys and opinions, infusing them into the lay press and media through press releases, articles and conferences, publishing, promoting and disseminating books, commissioning and placing favorable book reviews, providing media training for book authors and organizing media tours. These programs allowed the tobacco industry to affect public and academic discourse on the social acceptability of smoking.

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