Anne Landman's News Articles

Is Philip Morris Driving the FDA Regulation Train?

by Anne Landman — February 16, 2007 - 5:04pm

Philip Morris (PM) is a sophisticated company that runs at least ten years ahead of public health authorities in devising strategies to shape its destiny and preserve its future markets. PM knew that sooner or later push would come to shove and public pressure would make the U.S. government try to regulate its products and corporate behavior, especially after the U.S. Department of Justice found PM guilty of 50 years of conspiracy to defraud the public about the dangers of its products. True to form, in 1999 PM started an internal project called the Regulatory Strategy Project to enact Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations on the company's own terms. During the project, in 2000, PM generated a "Privileged and Confidential" document listing what the company would require in what it sees as "sensible" FDA regulations.

Beware The Tobacco Company That Begs for FDA Regulation

by Anne Landman — February 13, 2007 - 4:25pm

Topics: Tobacco, U.S. Government

It's not often you hear of a tobacco company begging for government regulation--especially one that has screamed "too much government regulation" at virtually every tobacco-related public health law proposed in the past. But that's exactly what tobacco company lobbyists are doing. Lobbyists for Altria, the parent company of Philip Morris (PM), have reportedly been distributing to Congress members summaries of two legislative bills that both propose the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulate cigarettes. A colleague of mine managed to obtain a copy of the summaries. It has Altria's logo on it.

As Nicotine Dose Increases, So Must Awareness of the Pitfalls of FDA Regulation

by Anne Landman — January 23, 2007 - 11:12pm

Topics: Corporate Social Responsibility, Issue Management, U.S. Congress, Health, Marketing, Public Relations, Science, Tobacco

The Harvard School of Public Health released a study Thursday revealing that the amount of nicotine in cigarettes has increased significantly since the major American tobacco companies signed the Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) in 1998. Predictably, Philip Morris (PM), in a media release available at their web site, denies the study results. The U.S. Surgeon General in 1988 warned that nicotine is as addictive as heroin and cocaine, but these drugs don't have decades of sophisticated R&D behind them aimed at heightening their addictiveness. Cigarettes, among the most highly engineered consumer products in the world, deliver nicotine into more people's bodies more times every day than aspirin. Still, they remain unregulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).