{"id":1615,"date":"2021-11-02T07:55:07","date_gmt":"2021-11-02T07:55:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/tc\/?p=1615"},"modified":"2021-11-02T07:55:07","modified_gmt":"2021-11-02T07:55:07","slug":"pmi-funded-foundation-for-a-smoke-free-world-searching-for-new-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/tc\/2021\/11\/02\/pmi-funded-foundation-for-a-smoke-free-world-searching-for-new-president\/","title":{"rendered":"PMI-funded Foundation for a Smoke-Free World: Searching for new President"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>John Baker<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>On October 25 2021 the Board of the Philip Morris International (PMI)-funded Foundation for a Smoke-Free World (FSFW) announced that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.smokefreeworld.org\/newsroom\/leadership-transition\/\">its President and Board Director Dr Derek Yach<\/a> \u00a0would no longer serve in this capacity, effective immediately. According to the FSFW website, Heidi Goldstein, General Counsel, and David Janazzo, Chief Finance Officer and Executive Vice-President of Operations and Finance, will serve as Interim Co-Presidents as the Board conducts a search for a new President. The latest media release announcing Dr Yach\u2019s departure stated that \u201cAfter careful consideration, the Board has determined that now is the right time for a new leader to guide the essential efforts of the Foundation, its team and its work with partners around the world.\u201d During the twelve months prior to this development, the FSFW updated its website to reflect the resignations of 14 staff members, representing over one-third (38%) of its staff leaving, according to the <a href=\"https:\/\/tobaccotactics.org\/wiki\/foundation-for-a-smoke-free-world\/\">Tobacco Control Research Group (TCRG)<\/a> at the University of Bath.<\/p>\n<p>The FSFW <a href=\"https:\/\/www.smokefreeworld.org\/our-vision\/\">describes itself<\/a> as \u201can independent, non-profit organization\u201d that was established and is \u201coperated free from the control or influence of any third party\u201d, which \u201cmakes grants and supports medical, agricultural, and scientific research to end smoking and its health effects and to address the impact of reduced worldwide demand for tobacco\u201d. The FSFW has been viewed with skepticism \u00a0since its inception, with its claims of legitimacy and independence strongly <a href=\"https:\/\/tobaccocontrol.bmj.com\/content\/28\/6\/712\">disputed.<\/a> The WHO and several hundred public health organisations globally have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tobaccofreekids.org\/what-we-do\/industry-watch\/pmi-foundation\/compilation\">taken a strong stance<\/a> in rejecting collaboration with the Foundation.<\/p>\n<p>The FSFW media release quoted Dr Yach as saying \u201cThe Foundation\u2019s ongoing work to end the world\u2019s largest single preventable cause of death could not be more needed today. I leave the Foundation with deep satisfaction that we now have an emerging cadre of hundreds of researchers, advocates and industry scientists dedicating themselves to this goal. My future efforts aim to complement them.\u201d What those efforts will entail remains to be seen. Despite Dr Yach\u2019s claims of success at the FSFW, in June 2019 the <a href=\"https:\/\/tobaccotactics.org\/wiki\/foundation-for-a-smoke-free-world\/\">TCRG exposed<\/a> that FSFW spent significantly more in 2018 on public relations (US$7.5 million) than research (US$6.4 million), supporting the growing consensus that the FSFW is primarily a PMI public relations initiative. The TCRG also found that despite FSFW claiming to focus on low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), these countries received less than 10% of FSFW funding (approx. US$2.5 million) in 2020, whilst organisations based in the UK and US received nearly 75% (approx. US$30 million) of funding.<\/p>\n<p>The FSFW was expected to receive around $US 80 million per year for 12 years in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.smokefreeworld.org\/our-vision\/\">\u201cannual gifts\u201d<\/a> from PMI; however the TCRG found that the FSFW\u2019s 2020 tax return showed funding from PMI was cut from US$80 million to US$45 million. The FSFW has apparently been unable to source other funders for its work, perhaps because they do not wish to be associated with a tobacco company group.<\/p>\n<p>It appears as though the FSFW is going up in smoke, given its difficulty in recruiting and maintaining staff and senior management, \u00a0its challenges finding ways to spend its funds beyond public relations activities while a growing body of public health organisations and academic institutions refuse to work with a tobacco industry-funded body, and its funding having been cut by nearly 50% by its sole funder. PMI may be wearying of funding an organisation <a href=\"https:\/\/tobaccotactics.org\/wiki\/foundation-for-a-smoke-free-world-how-it-frames-itself\/\">not achieving<\/a> what it was secretly designed to achieve: division and distraction of the public health and tobacco control communities, opening more space for PMI to position itself as \u201cthe solution\u201d to the tobacco pandemic, and undermining the implementation of the WHO FCTC globally.<\/p>\n<p><em>John Baker is the Assistant News Editor for Tobacco Control and is a Project Officer in the Tobacco Control Unit at the Victorian Department of Health, Australia. The author declares no conflict of interest.<br \/>\n<\/em><!--TrendMD v2.4.8--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>John Baker On October 25 2021 the Board of the Philip Morris International (PMI)-funded Foundation for a Smoke-Free World (FSFW) announced that its President and Board Director Dr Derek Yach \u00a0would no longer serve in this capacity, effective immediately. According to the FSFW website, Heidi Goldstein, General Counsel, and David Janazzo, Chief Finance Officer and [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/tc\/2021\/11\/02\/pmi-funded-foundation-for-a-smoke-free-world-searching-for-new-president\/\">Read More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":416,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6833,6838],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-foundation-for-a-smoke-free-world","category-philip-morris-international"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>PMI-funded Foundation for a Smoke-Free World: Searching for new President - Blog - Tobacco Control<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/tc\/2021\/11\/02\/pmi-funded-foundation-for-a-smoke-free-world-searching-for-new-president\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"PMI-funded Foundation for a Smoke-Free World: Searching for new President - Blog - Tobacco Control\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"John Baker On October 25 2021 the Board of the Philip Morris International (PMI)-funded Foundation for a Smoke-Free World (FSFW) announced that its President and Board Director Dr Derek Yach \u00a0would no longer serve in this capacity, effective immediately. 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