WED: Of Websitens and Health Information
January 24, 2005 6:55 am by Gene BorioPhilip Morris’ website was the object of much discussion in Ted Wells’ redirect of Philip Morris general counsel Denise Keane Wednesday.
Ms. Keane was put in charge of the website by then-CEO Geoffrey Bible, and Mr. Wells asked Ms. Keane questions on how the information was presented–ie, concise, one-page summations with links to further information, often from public health authorities’ sites. The purpose of the site, Ms. Keane said, was to bring the company into alignment with the public health community and “to create the broadest platform possible.” The site was designed “less as a place for advocacy than to provide consensus within a range of information. We believe this approach is consist with our overall philosophy which is based on informed choice. . . . We chose to keep things very simple.” The object was not to provide every detail at once, but “to present materials in an accessible fashion. . . . to focus on a concise format that we believe internet users prefer.” Thus, if the site leaves some material out that DOJ attorney Andrew Goldfarb would have preferred be in, this is the reason. And that material may undoubtedly be found in the provided links to public health sites.
Ms. Keane said the website was not meant to promote Philip Morris’ cigarettes. In fact, she said, the company had committed, at least by 1997 with a letter to Orrin Hatch referred to internally at Philip Morris as the “Hatch Statement,” to “withdraw from the debate on smoking and health.” The letter was in regard to the proposed national tobacco control legislation at that time. Mr. Wells asked that if that legislation had passed, would the MSA have been necessary today. Ms. Keane said, no.
As well as being specifically non-sales oriented, having a lawyer in charge of the website probably accounts for Philip Morris’ website design which, as opposed to other tobacco sites, is heavy on text, light on graphics. Most of us are familiar with its soft, blue-and-white design from the TV ads.
And in fact, much was made on how many different ways Philip Morris has attempted to drive traffic to the website (or, rather, according to Ms. Keane, to communicate with the public its changed position): as well as the TV ads, we have magazine ads, cigarette packs, cigarette package “onserts,” newspaper inserts, etc.
And should you in fact google “smoking health,” Philip Morris’ home page shows up as #23. If it hasn’t showed up as number one, it isn’t because the company hasn’t tried. The question is, when you want information on smoking and health, should a tobacco company be your first choice? Is there something that Philip Morris is doing that the CDC, ACS, ALA and innumerable other regional and national groups have missed?
Mr. Goldfarb earlier had discussed the fact that Philip Morris’ site may say smoking is addictive, but not that the nicotine itself in a cigarette is addictive. Ms. Keane argued that “smoking is composed of both product and the habit of smoking . . . that’s why ‘cigarette smoking is addictive is giving the consumer the broadest possible message.”
Mr. Wells on redirect had succeeded in finding a few places on the site where nicotine was mentioned as the addictive element in cigarettes, including the link to the 1988 Surgeon General’s Report, “The Health Consequences of Smoking: Nicotine Addiction.”
Tobacco as a Presidential Issue?
Philip Morris first officially stated that it agrees with the public health community that smoking causes disease was on its website on Oct. 11, 2000. Mr. Goldfarb uncovered an interesting Oct. 10, 2000 document in which Philip Morris VP Jay Poole expressed concern that this major website change not become a factor in the Presidential debate due to take place that night.
January 25th, 2005 at 1:47 am
The website was put in place for many purposes. Informing the public was not one of them.
That’s why you won’t see the following on the website:
– our product kills half its best customers
– our product kills one out of five Americans today
– our product kills more women than breast cancer
– our product kills our customers and the people closest to them
– our product causes irreversible damage
– our product gives you diseases you don’t get better from
– we engineer our product for addiction
These are simple statements of fact about what Philip Morris’s most profitable product does to the customer, and to those closest to the customer.
No, the website was put there for other reasons.
First and foremost, the site is there for Philip Morris to point at when it’s in court. The site was designed to have things to point out to judges and juries. So it’s no accident that Philip Morris cites it in this trial: that’s why it’s there.
A related reason: PR. A major PR goal: blame the customer. That’s what Philip Morris means when you decode “informed choice”. It doesn’t mean it wants an informed public. It doesn’t mean it will stop engineering product for addiction, so choice can be an issue. No, when “informed choice” comes out of Philip Morris’s mouth, it means “blame the customer”.
Blame the customer for what the product does to the customer. Make that credible by framing smoking as choice, then put out “information” and call that “informed choice”. As if addiction were about choice. As if anyone became a smoker by sitting, down, weighing the evidence, and saying “I”ve decided to take up smoking!”
ASCH puts it this way:
“Philip Morris wants you to believe that it is now open and candid, allowing customers to make fully informed decisions, but in reality they have cleverly muddied the waters further…”
http://www.acsh.org/healthissues/newsID.461/healthissue_detail.asp
So, how does the website (or Philip Morris’s inserts and ads) get credibility for blaming the customer, without actually informing anyone, say in a way that would lower Philip Morris’s profits? It’s not that hard, actually. Here’s how ACSH puts it:
“When an industry has been lying for more than half a century, then announces it is going to tell the truth but only tells a fraction of the truth, the impact can be as bad as or worse than the original lie. Philip Morris wants you to believe that it is now open and candid, allowing customers to make fully informed decisions, but in reality they have cleverly muddied the waters further. This advertising insert communicates the barest minimum of information about the negative health effects of smoking and contains misleading, ambiguous references. When links for ‘more information’ about health effects, addiction, and quitting are offered, the links are to highly obscure, consumer-unfriendly sources.”
“Philip Morris was very careful not to give an overview of the horrors of cigarette-related disease in the United States. For example:
“Nowhere did they mention the fact that cigarette smoking is the leading cause of preventable death in the United States, causally linked to one in every four deaths daily — one in every two premature deaths…”
“The publication didn’t address the concept of relative risk, ignoring the unique status of cigarettes as the only legally available product that is hazardous when used as intended. In these times when the media reports to us about the ‘carcinogen du jour’ in our food, air, or water, for Philip Morris to say that ‘cigarettes cause cancer’ is hollow unless they note that it is the leading preventable cause of cancer death in the United States…”
“The text completely omitted reference to the grim reality that some effects of smoking are irreversible. For example, after decades of smoking, an ex-smoker will continue to have a substantially elevated risk of lung cancer compared to a never-smoker…”
“This minimalist disclosure attempt is further proof that cigarette companies are subject to different legal standards than are any other companies…”
So, does the Philip Morris website and its health admission mean it’s informing smokers?
I’d put it: too little, too late.
Too little: it’s nothing more than a “minimalist disclosure attempt” as described above.
Too late: did Philip Morris discover in 2001 that its products killed people? What new evidence arrived in 2001 that convinced it? Did it really believe up to that time that there was no proof?
The reality is, Philip Morris and the tobacco industry knew decades ago everything they’re saying now. For decades, while saying in public there was no proof the product caused disease, in private this industry was saying “this has long since ceased to be an area for scientific controversy”.
www.ashaust.org.au/pdfs/fact10.pdf
The things Philip Morris says today on its website about smoking and health, it knew 30 years ago — and it could have said 30 years ago.
Philip Morris didn’t discover anything in 2001 that convinced it smoking causes disease.
What changed in 2001? Philip Morris’s legal situation. It wasn’t winning all its cases any more. So it designed a new litigation and PR strategy. It decided to project an image of being open and honest:
http://www.financialexpress.com/fe/daily/19990707/fco07053.html
That’s why its website is there, why its ads are there, and why it made a Big Deal about them in court today. That’s why starting a few years ago it started to let on that its product causes disease. As a courtroom strategy, its timing was just right. But if it had wanted to inform anyone, it would have said that 30 years ago.
Of course, Philip Morris will now say, well, OK, maybe we should have said that then, but the fact that we say it now, shows We’ve Changed! No likelihood of future violations! See, right on our website, we say it: smoking causes disease. Isn’t that being honest?
No, being honest would mean you can’t take it back whenever it’s inconvenient:
http://www.tobacco.neu.edu/Extra/hotdocs/simon_answer_ex.htm
The bottom line: what has changed is Philip Morris’s ligitation and PR strategy. Its long record of putting its profits over public health has not changed. Its website information on smoking and health is aimed at protecting its profits, not informing the public. It accomplishes that by providing little real information, and projecting a lot of image.