An international panel will explore a global web of anti-vape issues and how it influences the public’s perspective on vaping and safer nicotine products.
Headlined ‘the battle between innovation and bully tactics,’ the seventh episode of The Advocates Voice will premiere at 6 p.m. Hong Kong Time, or 10 p.m. New Zealand Time on July 11, 2021.
Led by Greece-based public health expert, Dr. Konstantinos Farsalinos, the panel discussion will be simulcast on the Coalition of Asia Pacific Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocates’ Facebook page.
Hosted by CAPHRA, Nancy Loucas, the group’s executive coordinator, said TAV 7 would make fascinating and timely viewing.
TAV is gaining a strong following among tobacco harm reduction supporters and the wider public. It follows mounting evidence, identifying well-known figures and entities at the center of false accusations levelled at safer THR products. Inexcusable attacks on THR consumer advocates are also growing.
“Billionaire philanthropists are using their money to influence the World Health Organization and in turn governments who rely on their guidance regarding tobacco policies. It’s a sophisticated global web of lies and Dr. Farsalinos and the TAV panel will expose the truth,” said Loucas.
“Ignoring the science, WHO treats smoking and nicotine vaping the same. This disastrous approach towards safer nicotine vaping products continues to negatively impact smoking cessation rates, costing millions of lives globally,” said Loucas.
She said TAV 7 would also explore the role of billionaire philanthropist influence on the mainstream media and scientific journals.
“The same people funding academic institutions for their ‘research’ then assist in this research being broadcast via the mainstream media. It’s all about controlling public perception and promoting lies about anti-tobacco harm reduction,” she said.
She said some academics and scientists were allegedly being bought and sold by billionaires and their foundations.
“The strategy to corrupt the public and academic narrative through funding research and influencing the media is out of control. As well as presenting their lies as science, university researchers and scientists’ defamatory attacks on THR consumer advocates need to stop. They must be held to account,” she said.
TAV 7 will discuss the best ways for consumer advocates to respond to such attacks, she said.
“To think that vaping—the world’s most effective smoking cessation tool—is being demonized in such a systematic, global way needs to be fully exposed. TAV 7 will do just that,” said Loucas.
The panel will include Asia Pacific THR consumer advocates such as Asa Saligupta, director of ENDs Cigarette Smoke Thailand; Mirza Abeer, director of the Association for Smoking Alternatives in Pakistan; and media expert Jena Fetalino, director of JFPR Philippines.
Consumer groups in the Asia Pacific region also launched a petition at change.org/v4v-petition that urges the WHO to respect consumer rights and to stop demonizing tobacco harm reduction options ahead of the next biennial meeting of the WHO Framework Convention of Tobacco Control in November.