Philip Morris is reducing its contribution to the A Smoke Free World Foundation. This is revealed by the Swiss blog magazine Vapolitics. Since September, 15 employees have left the foundation, which works to reduce smoking in the world.
The Foundation for a smoke free world was established three years ago by Derek Yacha former WHO tobacco prevention worker and one of the key people behind World Health Organization Tobacco Convention. The aim of the Foundation is to reduce cigarette smoking worldwide by developing alternative nicotine products and smoking cessation.
Important contribution from tobacco companies
The Foundation was made financially possible through an agreement with Philip Morris. PMI undertook to contribute SEK 80 million annually, for 12 years, to the organization. The large contribution opened the door to criticism from several quarters. But the agreement also guarantees the foundation's independence from the tobacco company's influence in terms of projects, research and choice of strategy.
But in September it became clear that PMI only budgeted half of the planned contribution for 2021. Vapolitiques source, a former employee of the Foundation, 15 people have disappeared from the FFSW staff list.
Harm reduction in developing countries
Founder of the Foundation Derek Yach partly confirms that Philip Morris has reduced its grant, at least temporarily, due to COVID-19. But he says the foundation still has great potential to support harm reduction projects. This is important in developing countries, where research on reducing the harms of smoking on the ground is hard to find funding.
"Neither the big giants like Bloomberg nor local government health authorities are interested in tobacco harm reduction or smoking cessation. Researchers in countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, Nigeria, or for that matter South Africa, don't get funding for projects aimed at this. That is the Foundation's niche, and we remain the largest funder of these researchers in developing countries." Derek Yach to the news channel Regulator Watch.
He stresses that the organization remains well placed to continue its work
Monitoring the transition of companies
Foundation for a smoke free world was founded in 2017 and regularly publishes studies and evidence on tobacco harm reduction. Earlier this year, the Foundation launched Tobacco Transformation Index - a periodic measurement of how different tobacco companies invest, or do not invest, in harm reduction products.
"Despite commitments and promises to move to less harmful products, 95% of sales are still traditional cigarettes among the top 15 companies" says Derek Yach
