Author Cites Persistent Tobacco Industry Attempts To Influence WHO

By Brittany Ngo for Intellectual Property Watch

Thirteen years after publication of the landmark report, “Tobacco Company Strategies to Undermine Tobacco Control Activities at the World Health Organization,” little has changed and industry manipulations continue, one of the lead authors has said.

Former Swiss official Thomas Zeltner led the 2000 study examining the tobacco industry’s efforts to subvert the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC).

A recent article in the Economic Times of India describes, through Zeltner’s personal experiences, the ways in which the tobacco industry has infiltrated not only WHO activities to control tobacco, but those of other UN and international organisations as well. In the article, Zeltner says that the tobacco industry is “ruthlessly organised” compared to a mostly “unorganised and outdated” global health community. He also says that industry often mimics governments by having “a secret service to spy on people who matter.”

In the time between the WHO report’s release and now, Zeltner left his position as director general of public health in Switzerland and currently heads several WHO committees. Zeltner cited ceaseless pressure and personal attacks as a reason for stepping down as director general.

[Editor’s Note: WHO officials restated at the annual World Health Assembly in May that they would continue a policy of no relations with the tobacco industry.]

Brittany Ngo is currently completing her Master’s in Health Policy and Global Health at the Yale School of Public Health and previously obtained a Bachelor’s of Arts in Economics from Georgetown University. Through her studies she has developed an interest in health-related intellectual property issues. She is a summer intern at Intellectual Property Watch.