Why is a pharmaceutical company funding smoking bans all around the country?
You guessed it, it's all about the money they'll make in return.....selling alternative nicotine products.Update: The latest RWJF grants to finance smoking bans, are found here, and here.
Meanwhile our politicians are duped, wittingly or not, and thousands of people are put out of jobs, by the exaggerations from the non-profits; American Lung, American Cancer, American Non-Smokers Rights Foundation, American Medical Association; nearly every university in the country including the U of M, etc.; all of whom have accepted hundreds of millions of dollars in lobbying money from the very same pharmaceutical nicotine affiliated Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
While the reality about secondhand smoke has been proven by a local health department to be 150 times safer than OSHA regulations require.
As I have stated in an earlier post, the founder of RWJF (the source of hundreds of millions of dollars for smoking bans) was none other than the founder of Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical; but the ties to the pharmaceutical industry don't end there.
Current Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) board of trustees:Robert Wood Johnson IV - Johnson is chairman and CEO of the Johnson Company, a personal investment enterprise in New York City. (Any guesses as to what type of pharmaceutical investments Mr. Johnson holds?) He also is a director of the Mayor's Fund to Advance New York City. (Was Mr. Johnson especially influential in getting a smoking ban passed in NY because of this affiliation? It's hard to know, but the implication is there.) Johnson is active in a wide range of civic and philanthropic activities related to improving health care. (Philanthropic?....like contributing to RWJF, so they can fund more smoking bans?)Robert E. Campbell - Campbell is a retired vice chairman of the Board of Directors of Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical.George S. Frazza - He previously served Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical for more than 30 years in the roles of corporate secretary, vice president and general counsel, and was a member of the executive committee.Edward J. Hartnett - Hartnett is a retired company group chairman of Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical responsible for Ethicon Inc., and other international affiliates. He previously served as vice president and general manager of the Patient Care Division of Johnson & Johnson Products.Ralph S. Larsen - Larsen is a former chairman and CEO of Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical (J&J). Previously, he held numerous positions at J&J, including company group chairman, vice chairman of the executive committee, and chairman of the consumer sector.Edward E. Matthews - Matthews is currently senior advisor and was formerly senior vice chair, Investments and Financial Services of American International Group, Inc. (AIG), one of the world's largest insurance and financial companies.
Looking into all the backgrounds of the current board of directors at Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical.....er...I mean Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, it is little wonder that they have provided the $446+ million dollars to the non-profit organizations to lobby in favor of smoking bans around the world; in order to prop up sales of alternative pharmaceutical nicotine products. While the non-profits, and our local government officials are serving as pawns to their master.ALZA, a wholly owned subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson Co...........ALZA developed products have provided therapy for millions of patients throughout the world. ........including transdermal (D-TRANS).......which has found applications in many widely used pharmaceutical products, such as ..... NicoDerm CQ (nicotine)............. via site-specific targeting.ALZA is the connection which proves Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical still makes a profit selling pharmaceutical nicotine products. An especially lucrative business after smoking bans are implemented. J & J acquired Alza in 2001.
GSK distributes Nicoderm, but it is manufactured by a Johnson & Johnson subsidiary......ALZA. As explained by GSK rep here:
Very important foot note, smoking bans have closed thousands of bars and restaurants eliminating hundreds of thousands of jobs, more information at this hyperlink:
Update: With J & J 's aquisition of Pfizer Consumer Health, Johnson & Johnson Co. and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation now realize additional smoking ban profits from the sales of alternative nicotine products Nicorette, Nicotrol, Commit, as well as Nicoderm and Nicoderm CQ. Using J & J's $50 billion dollar annual coffers and RWJF's $5.4 billion+ resources, investing a mere couple hundred million $$ to pass smoking bans is an investment that pays dividends as this story demonstrates....the pharmaceutical industry has mounted a sophisticated grassroots campaign to build support for its position on key issues that affect its bottom line. The industry has funded various groups to champion its positions, sponsored studies tilted to the industry and hired public relations firms to spearhead campaigns to soften up public opinion and government policies....
Smoking-cessation category sales* Information Resources Inc. (IRI) 52 weeks ended Oct. 2, 2005 (not including Wal-Mart data) Total smoking-cessation category in FDMX* ($494.8 million) (link)
Update: RWJF financial holdings include but not limited to 80,499,208 and 86,853,208 shares of Johnson & Johnson Common Stock in 2003 and 2002, respectively. This information is found on page 8 of 2004 financials for Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. At today's Johnson & Johnson price per share 67.36, that's just a shade over $5.4 billion dollars, pretty good justification for exaggerating about the health risks regarding secondhand smoke to local lawmakers. But does it justify lawmakers believing in those lies?
In a special report out of Washington DC we've found an interesting bit of information:
....Since the 1998 election cycle, employees of the pharmaceutical and health product industry, their family members and industry political action committees have given $133 million in campaign contributions to candidates running for federal and state offices......
Meanwhile, what does OSHA say about secondhand smoke levels?
Also see:
http://cleanairquality.blogspot.com/2007/04/bmj-published-air-quality-test-results.html
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