Clearing The Air

Do you want to take the red pill?........

.....or the blue pill?

Trading big tobacco for big pharmaceutical. Who is funding smoking bans? Follow the money trail.

In 1998 C. Everett Koop predicted nicotine inhalers and sprays would replace cigarettes for nicotine "addicts."

At the time Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) a philanthropic organization which donates money almost exclusively to organizations promoting smoking bans, was reported by Value Line investment services to hold 5.4 percent of Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) stock; afterall the founder of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation was non other than the Johnson & Johnson mogul himself. Johnson & Johnson was distributing Nicotrol products, while Robert Wood Johnson Foundation was distributing millions of dollars as grants to anti-tobacco activists to lobby for smoking bans (see RWJF96). Case closed as of late 1990s.

List of donations & grants by RWJF to affect tobacco policy & laws.

And Johnson and Johnson was still distributing Nicotrol pursuant to licensing agreement with Pharmacia, who owns patch and gum patents. Pharmacia was later acquire by Pfizer, which now distributes Nicotrol.

GlaxoSmithKline distributes Nicorette, NicoDerm CQ, Commit. But all the nicotine patches are manufactured by Alza Corp., a whooly owned subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson. And the American Cancer Societey is paid a fee by Glaxo for use of their seal.

-above information comes from Norm Kjono

In addition, note that Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has paid millions in grants to various American Cancer Society chapters, the very same American Cancer Society that then spends millions in our state MN ($600,000 in 2004 alone) lobbying our politicians for smoking bans so that Johnson & Johnson / Pharmacia can sell nicotine in an alternative form -Nicotrol, Nicoderm, etc. Conflict of interest? The "studies" and "information" supplied to our lawmakers by these various non-profit health organizations should be regarded as highly dubious at best

........just how far down does the rabbit hole go?..........we're still investigating....stay tuned.

In the mean time did you know S.L.P. Health Dept. tests show secondhand smoke in our bars & Restaurants is 150 times safer than OSHA regulations allow? How will the non-profit health organizations which receive their funding from the Nicotrol, Nicoderm manufacturers spin that fact? And should politicians who buy into those distorted "facts" be allowed to infringe on the private property rights of private businesses?

Update: Click here for more information on big pharmaceutical's control over governments and worldwide smoking ban lobbying efforts

posted by marcus aurelius @ 5:01 PM