Turning a threat into an opportunity: British American Tobacco's weakening of the Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products.

Background: Previous research has outlined transnational tobacco company (TTC) efforts to undermine implementation of the Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products (Protocol) and evidence of ongoing TTC complicity in the illicit tobacco trade (ITT). However, the industry's views on the Protocol and role in its development are not well understood.

Methods: Systematic searching and analysis of leaked documents-approximately 15 000 from British American Tobacco (BAT) and 35 from Philip Morris International, triangulated via searches of online resources and interviews with five stakeholders across academia, international organisations, governments, civil society and the private sector.

Illicit tobacco trade is 'booming': UK newspaper coverage of data funded by transnational tobacco companies.

Background: Transnational tobacco companies (TTCs) have heavily publicised their argument that standardised tobacco packaging will increase the illicit tobacco trade. Leaked Philip Morris International (PMI) documents suggest that the company may have intended to use third parties to promulgate this argument in the UK.

Methods: We examined articles in UK newspapers (1 April 2013 to 31 March 2015) from LexisNexis for presence and nature of tobacco industry data.

Tobacco industry's elaborate attempts to control a global track and trace system and fundamentally undermine the Illicit Trade Protocol.

Background: The Illicit Trade Protocol (ITP) requires a global track and trace (T&T) system to reduce tobacco smuggling. Given the tobacco industry's (TI) historical involvement in tobacco smuggling, it stipulates that T&T 'shall not be performed by or delegated to the tobacco industry'. This paper explores the rationale for & nature of the TI's effors to influence the ITP & its T&T system.

Towards a greater understanding of the illicit tobacco trade in Europe: a review of the PMI funded 'Project Star' report.

Background: Following a legal agreement with the European Union (EU), Philip Morris International (PMI) commissions a yearly report ('Project Star', PS) on the European illicit cigarette trade from KPMG, the global accountancy firm.

Methods: Review of PS 2010 report. Comparison with data from independent sources including a 2010 pan-European survey (N=18,056).

Unhealthy spin.

Public relations companies are experts at “third party technique”—helping the drug industry separate the message from what could be seen as a self interested messenger. But most journalists have a sketchy idea about how the public relations industry works, and thereby are vulnerable to uncritically accepting the disguised messages of the drug industry