The Tobacco Innuendo

I am grateful to Dr. Jernigan for his meticulous cataloguing of International Center for Alcohol Policies (ICAP) reports and publications and his assessment that they “often included useful contributions to various aspects of alcohol studies.”^1(p83) On the other hand, I have concerns about his selective use of quotations, such as deleted sentences from early drafts of a published document; some of his more fanciful speculations, such as the one about why I had been recruited as a World Health Organization senior scientist; and his steady drumbeat of accusations that I believe are totally unfounded.

There is, however, one significant issue on which I feel compelled to set the record straight. Jernigan explicitly states that “Philip Morris was among the founding companies of the ICAP.” This is simply not the case. The ICAP member to whom he refers was the Miller Brewing Company (now part of SABMiller). The statements that Jernigan includes from the vice president of corporate relations for Miller Brewing were made 15 years ago at a meeting of alcohol industry executives and do not refer to tobacco. The one quotation from a tobacco company (British American Tobacco) refers specifically to how “different” ICAP’s approach has been compared to that of the tobacco industry. Finally Guy Smith has never been a Diageo representative to ICAP nor a director of ICAP.

In short the evidence that Dr. Jernigan produces to demonstrate an ICAP tobacco connection is so tenuous that it amounts only to innuendo. Let me be absolutely clear—ICAP’s work has nothing whatsoever to do with tobacco.