E-Cigarettes and the Creation of Ignorance
Vaping Post cites CEI’s study by Senior Fellow Michelle Minton:
Michelle Minton writing in, ‘fear Profiteers,’ [26] sums things up thus…
“Anti-smoking advocates often portray big tobacco companies as “merchants of doubt” that pour large sums money into efforts to obfuscate the evidence that their products are harmful to health, in order to keep making money. But the strategies employed by anti-tobacco activists to push for anti-vaping policies are not that different: using hyperbolic language in the media and misleading research to spread the patently false idea that vaping is as bad as or even worse than smoking.
There is nothing wrong with health groups accepting grants from industry, even from companies with a financial stake in their mission, with their advocating for regulatory changes they believe will benefit public health, or with utilizing the media to raise the profile of their issues or organizational clout. However, there is something wrong with health- focused groups using taxpayer funds to obscure facts, lobby government, collude with activists in government agencies, and create unwarranted public panic.