BREAKING: Summit featuring Tony Blair and Sadiq Khan cuts tobacco ties after this newsletter's revelations
New York summit of political and business leaders announces “new policy of not working with any tobacco companies” after Democracy for Sale revealed financial ties to Philip Morris
A major international summit has cut all ties with the tobacco industry, after this newsletter revealed on Friday that the conference had been funded by tobacco giant Philip Morris International.
Last week’s scoop prompted calls for Tony Blair and Sadiq Khan to pull out of the Concordia summit, which runs alongside the UN General Assembly in New York this week.
Concordia has now severed all ties with the tobacco industry after its links with Philip Morris were exposed.
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Self-described ‘as the leading public-private sector forum’ that runs alongside the UN General Assembly, Concordia’s annual summit starts in New York today.
Philip Morris had been a ‘patron’ of Concordia and its CEO Jacek Olczak was listed among the speakers at the summit.
Asked about Concordia’s links with Big Tobacco on Friday, a spokesman told this newsletter “we welcome the participation of diverse views at our events.”
But on Saturday night, just over 24 hours after Democracy for Sale exposed Concordia’s ties to the tobacco lobby, the summit’s co-founder and CEO Matthew Swift announced on X (or I still call it, Twitter) a “new policy of not working with any tobacco companies, starting with the 2023 Annual Summit.”
The name of Philip Morris CEO Jacek Olcak was swiftly removed from Concordia’s website, as was the text of his speech. Philip Morris’s name was removed from the list of Concordia patrons.
The NCD Alliance, which campaigns to limit smoking, and Dr Tom Frieden, former New York City Health Commissioner and smoking cessation advocate, were added to the list of speakers at the summit.
British anti-tobacco campaigners and researchers, who had called on Blair and Khan to pull out of the summit, hailed Concordia’s decision to cut ties with the tobacco lobby.
“This is a great result for public health. Concordia should never have partnered with Philip Morris in the first place,” said Andy Rowell, investigators editor of the Tobacco Control Research Group at Bath University.
“Concordia’s collaboration with Big Tobacco was a clear violation of the international treaty which prevents the industry from having undue influence on public health. It is also a severe setback for Philip Morris who is always trying to sneak back to the policy table via the backdoor,” Rowell added.
Deborah Arnott, chief executive of anti-smoking charity ASH (UK) said, "At last Concordia has cut its ties with Big Tobacco, after many years of protests and pressure from the UN's World Health Organisation, and civil society organisations round the world.
“Tobacco is on track to kill over a billion people this century, mainly in low and middle income countries, it's astonishing that Concordia ever believed allowing Big Tobacco to use them as a lobbying tool was in any way acceptable.”
Based in the United States, where it is registered as a non-profit, Concordia has over 100 members, including corporations, NGOs and governmental agencies across the globe.
Philip Morris had been a Concordia ‘patron member’ since 2020. The tobacco giant, which makes over $80 billion net revenues a year from sales of over 600 billion cigarettes, had also previously sponsored the annual summit.
A spokesman for Philip Morris told this newsletter that Concordia’s decision to cut ties with the tobacco industry was “a sad indictment of the state of the world's health dialogue.”
"Philip Morris International remains undeterred in its mission to end smoking globally. We will discuss, debate, agree, and sometimes disagree, with anyone, anywhere and anytime," the spokesman added.
Other speakers at this year’s Concordia summit include former deputy minister Nick Clegg, former Labour minister David Miliband, Cherie Blair and the president of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola and the United Nations under secretary general Melissa Fleming.
The summit’s sponsors include Facebook parent company Meta, where former Lib Dem leader Clegg now works, and DP World, which was heavily criticised after P&O sacked 800 staff on Zoom last year.