It’s Official: Big Pharma is Lobbying Against Electronic Cigarettes- Dr. Michael Siegel
From: TobaccoToday
I have long argued that tobacco control advocates who have financial ties to Big Pharma must disclose these ties if they opine about national strategies for electronic cigarette regulation because these ties represent a conflict of interest. My argument was based on the premise that electronic cigarettes represent a major form of market competition with pharmaceutical cessation aids and that drug companies therefore have a financial interest in seeing electronic cigarettes squashed.
Today, I reveal that this speculation about pharmaceutical financial interests in the demise of e-cigarettes was not just speculation, but it has now been confirmed.
According to an article in the London Times, GlaxoSmithKline – a major player in the pharmaceutical smoking cessation industry – has lobbied vigorously on behalf of stringent electronic cigarette regulation in the European Union. Specifically, a leaked memo apparently showed that Glaxo was telling policymakers that electronic cigarettes could be a gateway to smoking and that these products should be regulated as medicines, not as a type of nicotine or tobacco product.
