Logicalscience

To Divide and Conquer:
Tobacco Tactics Leaked


Eli Rabett has stumbled upon a funding proposal from a tobacco lobbyist named Roger Bates. This proposal outlines his strategy to attack the anti-smoking campaign:

To be more successful we need to do the following :
.....
• Pick issues on which we can divide our opponents and win . Make our case on our terms, not on the terms of our opponents - malaria prevention is a good example

The aim of the papers will be to highlight two tensions : between the actions of environmental and public health policies, and between OECD and LDC aims . It will also question what the aims of international health agencies (primarily WHO) should be .

Basically he claims the best way to protect the tobacco companies is for the tobacco company to hire people to lobby on topics that have nothing to do with tobacco. They all but admit that their intent is to muddy the science in other fields as well as tobacco. Tobacco is responsible for over 20 % of male and 8 % of female deaths in developed countries. And this man advertises that his conscience is worth 800 pounds sterling a day. Keep this in mind the next time somebody cites the anti-global warming think tank The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition which just happens to be funded by the tobacco giant Philip Morris. More and more we are seeing a methodical, cold, and highly calculated war on science. Regardless of your political ideology, from libertarian or democrat, it should be clear that there are people on BOTH sides of the political spectrum that spin the science with ruthless abandonment.