RESEARCH PAPER

The tobacco industry’s use of Wall Street analysts in shaping policy

B C Alamar, S A Glantz

Center for Tobacco Control, Research & Education, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Professor Stanton A Glantz
Center for Tobacco Control, Research & Education, University of California, San Francisco, 530 Parnassus Ave, Suite 366, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA; glantz{at}medicine.ucsf.edu

Objective: To document how the tobacco industry has used Wall Street analysts to further its public policy objectives.

Methods: Searching tobacco documents available on the internet, newspaper articles, and transcripts of public hearings.

Results: The tobacco industry used nominally independent Wall Street analysts as third parties to support the tobacco industry’s legislative agenda at both national and state levels in the USA. The tobacco industry has, for example, edited the testimony of at least one analyst before he testified to the US Senate Judiciary Committee, while representing himself as independent of the industry.

Conclusion: The tobacco industry has used undisclosed collaboration with Wall Street analysts, as they have used undisclosed relationships with research scientists and academics, to advance the interests of the tobacco industry in public policy.

Abbreviations: FDA, Food and Drug Administration; MSA, Master Settlement Agreement; PMUSA, Philip Morris USA; SEC, US Securities and Exchange Commission

Keywords: disclosure; economics; public policy; smuggling; Wall Street analysts

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