Philanthro-colonialism much? Accusations that anti-tobacco funds are used to promote a particular social agenda and/or influence government bodies around the world.
The Bloomberg initiative
Bloomberg Philanthropies certainly never hid the fact that it works with governments around the world. Based on information on the foundation’s website, Bloomberg Philanthropies worked with more than 810 cities and 170 countries. Bloomberg committed the majority of profits from his global financial technology, data, and media company, Bloomberg L.P., as well as the majority of his wealth to Bloomberg Philanthropies, which encompasses his foundation, corporate, and personal philanthropy.
Bloomberg Philanthropies focuses its efforts on five areas: the environment, public health, the arts, government innovation, and education through an approach which includes establishing a network of partners and “advocacy and lobbying” as part of the process to achieve its goals. The Bloomberg Initiative to Reduce Tobacco Use is one of the many public health initiatives the foundation carries out.
Started in 2007, the initiative seeks to implement a set of anti-tobacco policies it calls MPOWER, which stands for monitoring tobacco use; protecting the public with smoke-free laws; offering help to quit smoking; warning about the dangers of tobacco through pack labels and public awareness; enforcing advertising bans; and raising taxes on tobacco. The foundation says the initiative currently spans more than 110 low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), including China and India, and that more than 100 countries have at least one MPOWER policy in place. The initiative has now also extended its target to include vaping, heat-not-burn, and the use of non-pharmaceutical nicotine.
All is not what it seems
The term “work with” might be up to interpretation, though. Writing for Inside Sources and the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Michelle Minton calls Bloomberg’s anti-tobacco efforts “meddling” and “philanthro-colonialism,” saying that Bloomberg Philanthropies aims to “impose its will on the developing world” through its influences through all levels of civil society, media, and government. Reviewing the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids’ (CTFK) 2017 strategy for LMICs, Minton found that CTFK, a main Bloomberg Philanthropies partner and anti-tobacco fund recipient, achieves its goals through building a network of influential people at all levels as well as government agencies and authoritarian regimes to create what appears like a consensus of independent people wanting the same anti-tobacco policies, but is, in actuality, a carefully-orchestrated and coordinated effort by CTFK, which, in turn, is pushing Bloomberg-decided policies that it passes as decisions by international authorities, such as the World Health Organization (WHO), another Bloomberg partner and fund recipient, manipulating LMICs to fall in line and adopt their anti-tobacco policies.
Other Bloomberg partners and fund recipients include the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, the CDC Foundation, Vital Strategies, Stopping Tobacco Organizations and Products (STOP), the Anti-Tobacco Trade Litigation Fund, the University of Bath (UK) Tobacco Control Research Group, the Global Centre for Good Governance in Tobacco Control (GGTC), the South-East Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (SEATCA), as well as WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.
Backfiring policies
By demanding that governments adopt the same Bloomberg-approved anti-tobacco policies regardless of the cultural, economic, social, trade, and geographic differences in each country, Bloomberg and its partners are more than likely to see such policies backfire, for example raising the smoking rate in one country albeit from a different tobacco product, increasing the illicit trade, or driving people to more dangerous behaviors.
Not content with controlling what basically are policies against traditional tobacco products like cigarettes, Bloomberg and its partners now have vapes and heat-not-burn products in their crosshairs, taking away what are considered by many to be safer alternatives to the very products they seek to eliminate. Writing for The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Marc Gunther said that Bloomberg funded an anti-vaping campaign, led by Bloomberg and CTFK, that public health experts say is “misguided, built on unsound science, and likely to do more harm than good.”
Among those experts is Kenneth Warner, a founding board member of the Truth Initiative which is committed to ending tobacco use, as well as former president of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco, senior scientific editor of the 25th-anniversary Surgeon General’s report on smoking and health, and the dean of the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health. Warner said campaigns against e-cigarettes are a mistake, and that Michael Bloomberg is “way off-base on this,” a sentiment apparently shared by other respected members of the tobacco control crowd.
Gunther also said that by exaggerating the dangers of e-cigarettes, Bloomberg and partners have actually given people a reason to smoke, which definitely is not what they want.
And, finally, pushback
An ongoing investigation in the Philippines is one of the latest examples of how Bloomberg-funded agencies try to manipulate LMIC governments. It is, however, also a shining example of a government pushing back, forcing its people under Bloomberg influence to be accountable for their actions. Lawmakers in the Philippines said the country’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (The Union), funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies, possibly violated several laws including those related to graft and corruption, ethical conduct, tobacco, and lobbying when FDA received US$150,430 in funding from The Union in support of its tobacco control policy development.
The hearing was the latest step in the House Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability’s investigation into whether the funds received led to specific and pre-defined e-cigarette and heated tobacco products.
House representative Sharon Garin said, “It was so obvious that the donation was made to influence FDA, [and that this] was tantamount to bribery. We could not be puppets of institutions that are not even Filipinos. This is not only a violation of the laws that we have, it is a violation of our Constitution,” while Rodante Marcoleta, deputy House speaker, asked if it is “improper or irregular” for FDA to receive private funding from advocates calling to ban tobacco in the country.
The Philippines started a new movement, fighting back against 21st-century philanthro-colonialism for autonomy over its own affairs.