For the fourth time, the nicotine industry seized the opportunity of the United Nations General Assembly to organize a conference on harm reduction. One of the proposals made there: abolish the ban on US government export support for the nicotine industry. 

By the web editors

Last week was the week of the United Nations General Assembly and for the fourth time the nicotine industry organized the New Approaches Conference in New York. In the week that policymakers from all over the world come together there, the conference brings speakers on stage who advocate ‘harm reduction’ as the way to a ‘smoke-free’ future. Worldwide, the industry is lobbying hard to convince policymakers that alternative nicotine products are the better alternative to cigarettes. The industry off course wants to prevent the smoke-free future from becoming nicotine-free at all costs, because then its entire business model would collapse.

In 2022, we already wrote about the first edition of this conference, which is still chaired by South African Derek Yach, once director of non-communicable diseases at the World Health Organization (WHO), but from 2017 to 2021 president of the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World (FSFW), which was fully funded by Philip Morris International (PMI).

Conference ‘respects’ article 5.3

The mission of the New Approaches Conference (NAC) is formulated as “to end smoking-related deaths, improve global health outcomes, and support a more sustainable future.” NAC wants to provide a ‘neutral convener’ and cynically claims that in line with Article 5.3 of the WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), it does not receive funds or interference from the “tobacco, pharmaceutical or tobacco control industries”. “However, the event remains open to all delegate attendees, fostering inclusive dialogue”, it then adds.

Infringement of Article 5.3

In other words, the NAC provides the stage for the nicotine industry to warm policymakers to the alleged benefits of e-cigarettes, heated tobacco and nicotine pouches, in defiance of FCTC Article 5.3. In four sessions last Monday, the conference covered New regulations and “the complex intersection between public health, trade defence and access to the global market”, Scientific solutions to end smoking, Innovations in oral nicotine, and Investments with impact on public health.

All speakers have ties to the industry

The list of speakers includes a whole series of founders of companies in the nicotine business, including Alexander Häggqvist of the nicotine pouch producer NOAT, the Iranian-American Katherine Ilkhani of startup Zolv, producer of oral nicotine strips, Kellsi Booth of nicotine pouch producer Black Buffalo and Andrej Kuttruf, founder of the chain of e-cigarette shops Evapo in Germany and the UK.

Several scientists who spoke turn out not to be as independent as their biographies suggest. Charles Gardner, who is listed as a developmental neurobiologist who previously worked for the U.S. Department of Health and served as an advisor to the WHO, is found to have served as the FSFW’s Director of Health Science and Technology from 2018 to 2020. Between 2021 and 2023, he was secretary-general of the International Network of Nicotine Consumer Organizations (INNCO) and today he presents himself on LinkedIn as a consultant in harm reduction strategies.

Professor who saw nicotine as Covid medicine

Or take Raymond Niaura, professor of Public Health at New York University’s School of Global Public Health. An expert on addictions, author of more than 400 scientific papers and formerly director of research at the Schroeder Institute and Truth Initiative, and president of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco. But Niaura also contributed in 2021 to an article on smoking cessation in low- and middle-income countries for which the first author, Navin Kumar, had received a grant from the FSFW. And in 2020, he authored, together with Konstantinos Farsalinos and Anastasia Barbouni, an article suggesting that nicotine could be a medicine against Covid-19.

Another person who is attracting attention is Jeannie Cameron, legal and policy expert on the WHO FCTC. She previously worked for the Australian government, advised the OECD, and has been working from the UK as a strategic consultant since 2011. But from 2001 to 2011, she was Head of International Advocacy for British American Tobacco, and in 2020/21, she was Vice President of the American e-cigarette manufacturer Juul.

Propagating more pro-science

What they talked about was revealed by Owen Bennett of the mergers & acquisitions platform Plxsur, which specifically aims at the nicotine industry. On LinkedIn, he gave an overview of three outcomes that were important to him. The first is about the misinformation about less harmful products, fuelled by media that love negative stories and scientists who feed that to get into the spotlight. The prevailing idea was that new routes must be found to get the voice of ‘harm reduction scientists’ out there, for example through social media, but also by promoting it to the media.

Abolish Doggett Amendment

A second point that was discussed is the removal of a provision in American law, the so-called Doggett Amendment, which since 1998 prohibits government support to tobacco companies for export and marketing in other countries. The amendment prevents tobacco companies from interfering with U.S. government support in the tobacco policies of other countries. Indeed, there seems to be talk of the Trump administration now reversing that provision, Tobacco-Free Kids warned in July. Bennett argues that this provision made sense in the era of the cigarette but now stands in the way of harm reduction. It was also proposed that a group of smokers could start an international lawsuit against bans of alternative nicotine products on the grounds of human rights.

A third outcome was the idea that the industry should apply more self-regulation to counteract the excesses in the sector, in the absence of proper enforcement and testing standards.