Researchers of tobacco, alcohol and ultra-processed foods face threats and intimidation – new study

Cancer, heart disease, chronic respiratory conditions, diabetes and stroke now account for nearly three-quarters of all deaths globally. Investigating the causes of these diseases has never been more crucial for public health.

But this research is a direct threat to corporate power and profits. It can lead to growing recognition of the need to regulate the commodities associated with these conditions, most notably alcohol, tobacco and ultra-processed food and beverages.

Our new paper, published in Health Promotion International, reveals how researchers producing evidence of the harms of these industries have been intimidated because of their work.

We mapped the extent to which researchers and advocates have been subject to intimidation tactics by tobacco, alcohol and ultra-processed food (UPF) companies and their associates. The tactics described include being descredited in public, legal threats, complaints, nefarious use of Freedom of Information legislation, surveillance, cyberattacks, bribery and even physical violence.

Looking at evidence from the last 20 years, we identified 64 sources published between 2000 and 2021 which detailed intimidation of researchers and advocates working in the tobacco, alcohol and UPF spaces.

Two-thirds of these were peer-reviewed sources which mentioned instances of intimidation. The majority were not papers specifically about intimidation, but most were about corporate interference in policy passage or implementation. The remaining third were sources like blogs, newspaper articles, news stories in peer-reviewed journals, a case study, a press release, a recorded seminar and a book.

The scale of intimidation we have found is likely to be the tip of the iceberg. Many will be too scared to publicly reveal that they have been intimidated because of their work.

We found widespread intimidation across the three sectors, perpetrated by corporations themselves and their third parties. In the most serious forms of intimidation, the perpetrators remained unknown.

Discrediting experts

Public discrediting was the most common form of intimidation we found. Researchers and advocates were called a long list of derogatory names to undermine their credibility: extremists, prohibitionists, “food fascists”, “gastronomical gestapo”, and “demons of overzealous and moral righteousness”.

In various types of media, they have been portrayed as untrustworthy, incompetent, money hungry, peculiar or not having the right physique to criticise the food industry.

One academic described the personal toll of such discrediting:

My integrity was recently impugned by a micro-organisation with a lofty sounding name, whose website showed precisely one blogger, and which is associated with groups with a history of tobacco funding. They made imputations that were nasty and untrue — but attracted media coverage, which was presumably the intention.

The critical debate of research is welcome and necessary. But the incidents documented in our study go far beyond this, amounting to character assassination and intimidation.

Legal threats and challenges, complaints to individuals, their employers and governing bodies, also featured in both the tobacco and food sectors. Such methods can be used to stop researchers from publicising their findings, and to stop advocates from pushing for public health interventions that would reduce tobacco use and sugar consumption.

In one case, in Colombia, an academic was censored after producing an advert showing the amount of sugar in a can of soda. According to a report:

The backlash was fierce. A Colombian Government agency, responding to a complaint by the nation’s leading soda company that called the ad misleading, ordered it off the air. Then the agency went further: It prohibited [the researcher] and her colleagues from publicly discussing the health risks of sugar, under penalty of a $250,000 fine.

Legal challenges and threats

Freedom of information requests were used to delay work and thwart progress. Those who received them had to spend time responding to these instead of getting on with their usual work. Such requests are a well-worn industry tactic.

In New Zealand, an industry-paid consultant working for tobacco, alcohol and UPF companies sent Freedom of Information Act requests to researchers and advocates and used the resulting information to denigrate them. Three researchers successfully brought a defamation case against the consultant.

The consultant admitted under oath that the purpose of his many FoI requests and his subsequent, libellous blog posts was to undermine the credibility of researchers and advocates at the behest of the industries that were paying him to do so.

Researchers looking into the harms of tobacco, alcohol and sugary foods have reported intimidation.
Africa_pink/Shutterstock

Although less frequent, very serious forms of intimidation were also reported across the sectors. We found reports of surveillance, where researchers and advocates and their families were followed, and cyberattacks where computers and mobile phones were hacked. Some reported offers of bribery to desist with work and threats of violence.

In Nepal, tobacco control advocates described receiving death threats by phone. This was after they had refused bribery offers to stop being active in policymaking efforts. In one extreme case, violence against anti-smoking activists in Nigeria led to two deaths.

A chilling effect

All intimidatory activities we identified had a chilling effect on important public health work. Researchers and advocates took time to respond to the complaints or requests for information, or had to discontinue or alter their work at least temporarily, while legal action ran its course.

Researchers described the public discreditation as untrue, unfair, offensive, insulting and defamatory. Others said it was wearying, unpleasant, intimidating and distressing.

In Latin America, an advocate reported feeling “extremely frustrated” that the industry could say what it wanted but that advocates could not report the truth about sugar.

There were also documented financial impacts. One advocacy group was successfully sued by a corporation for libel. Another spent $20,000 USD (almost £16,000) to protect themselves. And an advocate faced financial ruin if an industry lawsuit against them were successful.

However, the predominant theme in the literature was that of perseverance and defiance. Around half of the sources included in our study actually talked about how the targets of intimidation responded. And most of those reported fighting back by exposing the tactics, correcting misinformation and launching their own legal challenges against the perpetrators.

In most cases, even if delayed, researchers reported continuing with their public health work.

Our findings show that corporate interests have worked tirelessly to thwart regulation of their products and actions by using intimidation tactics against public health researchers. But despite the significant personal and professional costs of working in an environment where their credibility is constantly questioned, researchers and advocates persevere.