To: Julia Carol, Executive Director, Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights
E-mail: (anr@no-smoke.org)

December 13, 1999

Dear Ms. Carol:

It is my understanding that your organization has spent Proposition 99 funds to compile an "enemy list" of those who oppose your political agenda of suppressing the right to smoke. People and organizations that question the "creative" scientific and statistical information on smoking, smokers, tobacco-related health effects and passive smoking as well as those who oppose your attacks on a legal industry have also made their way onto your hit list.

I'm not sure about the exact amount of taxpayers' money you spent on this list, though I believe that it is considerable. I understand that your enemy list even includes a federal judge, William L. Osteen, for committing the horrible sin of vacating the EPA's manipulation of statistical data concerning ETS. For that he certainly deserves to be thoroughly investigated as an ally of a legal industry!

Considering the high calibre of the people included on your hit list, I hereby humbly write to ask you if the organization I belong to, FORCES INTERNATIONAL, is also included in your list of enemies.

Though not related in any way to the tobacco industry, FORCES means Fight Ordinances and Restrictions to Control and Eliminate Smoking. It is therefore quite clear that our organization of sinful addicts and disruptive smokers and non-smokers is very active in fighting the prohibition and the junk science that you support so adamantly. I assure you that we are really bad boys and girls and we intend to get much worse. If you don't believe me, please verify at http://www.forces.org, now hit over 300,000 times a month, where this letter is posted.

If, after spending such a considerable sum of taxpayer money, you missed including FORCES International on your hit list, please add us at your earliest convenience. Nothing would make us more proud than being officially blacklisted as an enemy of the anti-tobacco cartel, of which your organization is so prominent a representative.

In the hope that this is not too much trouble, I thank you in advance for your thoughtfulness.

Yours for an antitobacco-free future.

Gian Turci,
C.E.O.,
FORCES INTERNATIONAL
gianltur@tin.it

(Electronically dated December 13, 1999)

Dear Mr. Turci,

Thank you for your polite and humorous letter. I know we strongly disagree on policy issues, but I appreciate anyone with wit.

In case you're interested in our response to the inaccuracies and misrepresentations in the article -- check our web page www.no-smoke.org in the next day or two.

December 18, 1999

Dear Mrs. Carol,

Thank you for your evasive response. Evading specific issues seems to be the speciality of the anti-tobacco cartel operatives. You seem to think we are joking. We assure you that we take what we do quite seriously. We certainly are interested in your response to the article. We have linked to it, published your response to us, and proceeded to analyse ANR's public response.

In case you're interested in our analysis, and in our public challenge to the ANR to prove the health claims of the cartel about tobacco, check our web page at http://www.forces.org/articles/files/anr-gian.htm. Alternatively, you can access it trough http://www.forces.org/articles/latest.htm. Take your time. The FORCES website is "parked" until January 6, 2000. The piece is going to be posted until then.

Yours for an antitobacco-free future.

Gian Turci
CEO,
FORCES INTERNATIONAL

Link to the public ANR response to the LA Daily News article

Two articles published on December 6, 1999 in the Los Angeles Daily News (not to be confused with the respectable Los Angeles Times) attack Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights (ANR) and the ANR Foundation for our work tracking and exposing tobacco industry interference with public health efforts.

It is clear that in ANR opinion "respectable press," such as the Los Angeles Times, is only the one that avails the pseudo-scientific evidence and propaganda of the antismoking cartel about the "health" effects of ETS and primary smoking. Press that reports otherwise is obviously not respectable.

Anti-tobacco is not a public health effort but a major social control experiment. Public health is supposed to describe the causes and effects coldly and without bias. This is not the case of anti-tobacco propaganda. That propaganda is based on manipulated science and statistics, bogus attributions, macabre exaggerations, hate speech and even scientific fraud. Though we don't mean to state that smoking is harmless (nothing is), we hereby challenge the ANR to procure proof of the health effects of ETS, for example. By "proof" we do not mean epidemiological studies based on anecdotes, data cherry picking and self-reporting. Real science, medicine included, is based on HARD EVIDENCE and PROOF that can be verified, predicted and replicated.

The ANR is promoting speculations and, like the rest of the antismoking "establishment," presents these as if they were proof. We believe this is misrepresentation of evidence - or worse - and it's being done at the expense of the taxpaying public to justify the stigmatization of an entire class of citizens and of a legal industry for the purpose of financial exploitation and political gain.

So, ANR, on what scientific PROOF do you base your assertions about public health?

The list referred to was a public list of organizations and individuals who were actively involved in interfering with public health's tobacco education work.

Can we see that list? If it's public, make it public. If it is in the interest of the public and for public health, we have no doubt that you would like to share it with all of us.

"Public health's tobacco education work" is supposed to educate on ALL aspects of tobacco without paternalistic arrogance towards children and adults. That includes real and presumed health benefits, statements concerning uncertain evidence about disease attribution, and other aspects that may be even contrary to the personal opinion of the educators.

We have neither seen nor heard this side of the coin from the anti-tobacco cartel. And the cartel is hard at work to ensure this information is suppressed no matter who and where it comes from. Is it part of public education - with respect to health or anything else - to attempt to silence, ignore, slander or demonise anyone who disagrees with or has reservations about the contents or the methods of the "public education effort?"

Many of them were groups created by and for tobacco companies so they could hide. The list was not for the purpose of attacking these groups - we have no power to do that - but to expose their activities to the public and to legislators so they could form accurate conclusions.

Of course your organization has the power to attack both groups and individuals -- with insinuations, innuendo, and by portraying a legal commercial industry as criminal. It should also be noted that anti-tobacco's ad hominem attacks are not confined to the tobacco industry. The cartel's notion of "public education" includes encouraging the marginalisation of smokers as individuals and parents, by instigating disrespect in their children and insulting their choice and their lifestyle. The fact is, your agenda is to silence opposition and force behavior. And that makes your compilation of black lists dangerous.

Since you are so good at compiling lists, we stand by to see the list of anti-smoking studies and other lobbying activities that are instead financed by the pharmaceutical industry, for example, for marketing reasons that seem to us as obvious as the reasons the tobacco industry may have. To be consistent, that list should be presented with the same attitude and colors reserved for the tobacco industry in the interest of fair public health education. After all, the pharmaceuticals are competing with the tobacco industry in the distribution of nicotine!

While it is completely appropriate for the Department of Health Services to use the tobacco tax revenues generated by voter-approved Proposition 99 to counter pro-tobacco influences in our state - the list referred to in the Daily News was in fact not paid for by Prop. 99 funds.

Really? If it wasn't paid for by Prop 99 funds (and we have only your word for that) it most certainily should NOT have been. Your slippery formulation, that Prop 99 money is to be used "to counter pro-tobacco influences in our state" is yet another misrepresentation. As much as we disagree with most of its purposes, Prop 99 money was to be used for anti-tobacco education in schools and communities; hospital treatment of indigent patients; physician treatment of indigent patients; research on tobacco-related diseases; "Environmental concerns"; with non allocated money to be applied to the above categories.

We remind you that political advocacy is specifically forbidden by Prop 99, and "countering pro-tobacco influences" sounds mighty political to us!

So concerned was your group with public health that you sued when California tried to use some of the money for pre-natal care for poor women and immunization for poor children! But your own organization's Stanton Glantz has certainly not been shy about funds for his projects. Maybe the cartel is just worried about losing some of the money.

And to add insult to injury, it is useful to note here that California voters have been presented with altered information on the health effects of tobacco and fooled into the belief that a slanderous hate campaign against smokers and a legal industry would virtually eliminate disease. This is, of course, false. Had the citizens of California been presented with the truth, organizations like ANR and the rest of the anti-tobacco cartel would not enjoy public funding now.

We have not maintained the list since 1996. It is true that we apologized to a Mr. John Nelson for any confusion which may have arisen by listing his actions along with 2 other individuals named John Nelson. There were no inaccuracies in the report - we just agreed with him that the wrong conclusions could be reached by the way the report was written. We apologized - he accepted our apology. Some years later, our foundation created a database (again, because we wanted to keep ownership, we have not used Prop. 99 funds for the creation or maintenance of the database) which simply acts as a search engine to help us find news articles, letters, and internal tobacco industry documents released by court mandate - all of which help us expose groups pretending to be independent, but who are hiding their tobacco industry funding or sponsorship. Staff who work on the Prop. 99 grant are paid to help track, expose and counter tobacco industry interference with public health. They have free access to the database for this effort.

Since we are not involved with the tobacco industry (your no doubt thorough investigation about FORCES must have revealed that) we renew the request for access to your database, to "protect" ourselves against tobacco industry "interference," if you will!

Judge Osteen has never been on any "list." The ANR Foundation did not "investigate" Judge Osteen. Judge Osteen is the North Carolina judge who has found procedural problems with the Environmental Protection Agency's risk assessment on environmental tobacco smoke. After his ruling, the tobacco industry and their public relations consultants used this opportunity to exploit the press to confuse the public about the science of secondhand smoke as well as the implications of the ruling.

Congratulations for the spinned statement about EPA. In simple English, Judge Osteen has found that the results concerning the risk assessment of second hand smoke were the result of data cherry picking and heavy alteration of well-established scientific procedures to achieve a political rather than scientific goal. For a truly detailed exposè of the techniques used to manipulate data (which in spite of that showed a statistically insignificant risk increase for non smokers), click here. Again in plain English, that sounds like fraud to us -- and this is NOT a PR spin. Do you beg to differ?

Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights prepared a position paper explaining the Judge's ruling and why it did not affect the hundreds of laws in the country eliminating smoking from public places. We also included information, which we easily obtained from published press reports, about the Judge's connections to tobacco companies. This information was shared with California's health departments and health advocates. This work probably took less than an hour and was highly appropriate and valuable.

The reason the Judge's decision has not restored the right of smokers to smoke in public is quite evident, since it has to do with politics and special interests and not with science. As for the list, you have shared this information with the anti-tobacco cartel, but what about the public at large? Judge Osteen ruled against the tobacco industry in other instances. Do you think that ignoring one aspect and emphasising another constitutes a good way to inform the public or even your collaborators?

The ANR Foundation has received $1.1 million since 1995 when it was originally awarded a competitive grant from the Department of Health Services, Tobacco Control Section. These funds have been used to develop educational materials and provide educational services. Ironically, included among these materials are two documentaries regarding tobacco industry attacks on the science of secondhand smoke; harassment of local health departments and other organizations working on tobacco control issues; and stealth lobbying, using front groups like the National Smokers Alliance, at the federal, state, and local levels. These documentaries, "The Hidden War" and "Fighting Back," show how the tobacco industry uses public relations firms to malign tobacco control researchers and organizations as it continues to produce and market a product which kills hundreds of thousands of smokers and injures thousands of nonsmokers every year.

The statements about the harm to smokers, and particularly non smokers are unsubstantiated, thus FALSE by any seriously scientific methodology, ANR. There is NO PROOF that second hand smoke hurts anyone, and unless you are totally incompetent, you know that as well as we do. That being the case, we fail to see how misrepresentation of evidence can help real public health - unless we bring in financial, paternalistic, or puritanical considerations…?

We believe that any organisation, tobacco-funded or otherwise, that helps combat the kind of misinformation you and the rest of the cartel divulge on smoking must be commended for offering a true service to society.

Thus, the tobacco industry and its public relations front groups have good reason to want to put an end to the ANR Foundation's impressive track record of exposing their deceptive and underhanded tactics. Stopping such exposure is especially important now that tobacco manufacturers are in the midst of a massive public relations campaign to portray themselves as kinder, more responsible corporate citizens following their legal settlement with the state attorneys general.

ANR's hate against the tobacco industry is quite evident. We believe that the greatest error the tobacco industry has ever made, was to hire too many PR companies and not enough scientists to fully expose in layman terms the Great Fraud on smoking and health that officially started with the 1964 Surgeon General Report, where conclusions were drawn from "free interpretations" of its own database.

As far as underhanded tactics are concerned, the level of manipulation, junk science, evidence misrepresentation and behind-the-scenes manoeuvres of the anti-tobacco cartel are, in the opinion of too many, totally unmatched to date. The tobacco industry should really sit back and learn.

The hit-pieces in the Los Angeles Daily News and the subsequent spreading of mis-information about our organization and our work do not come as a surprise to us. The ANR Foundation has long expected some form of retribution for the 1998 publication and dissemination of the National Smokers Alliance Exposed. This 14 page document prompted the Washington Post and other media outlets to refer to the National Smokers Alliance (NSA) as a group created by Philip Morris, effectively ending its front as an independent smokers organization. We strongly suspect that the public relations firm Burson-Marsteller is behind the scenes encouraging the mis-information campaign. This is the same firm which created the National Smokers Alliance and is now working to undermine California's statewide workplace smoking law.

You mean anti-smokers law. Spoken just like someone who knows the ropes of misinformation. We just hope they are successful in restoring the rights of smokers and put an end to the tax-grabbing orgy.

Steve Thompson, vice president for government affairs for the California Medical Association was quoted as saying "The public believed that this money would be used for TV and billboard campaigns - that's the best use of these funds. We…want to see a reconcerted effort toward what works." We're heartened to see that Mr. Thompson now understands the importance of tobacco education and of a strong media campaign, since we had to sue the state to stop the diversion of funds away from tobacco education programs that he, the CMA, and the tobacco industry lobbied for. The CMA is hardly in a position to speak in the name of what's good for the public, as Big Tobacco's own internal documents indicate they have cooperated in the past.

Your display of arrogance certainly needs no further comment, except this: we have no doubt that the lawsuit was to put the money where the core of the antismoking cartel could get it. Otherwise, how could ANR, for example, have sufficient resources to brainwash children and adults and pay its "mortgages" as well?

We are proud of the work we have done. If the tobacco industry continues to misinform the American people, and to hide behind front groups, we will continue to expose them.

We can sympathise with that feeling of pride. We are also proud of the work we do. Exposing misinformation and liars is always a honourable mission. That is the very reason we are in the business of exposing nearly 40 years of misleading information on health by the anti-tobacco cartel.