Excellent report. Thanks. There is only a missing ingredient: the tobacco control orthodox technocracy outside Bloomberg's flotilla and the WHO window dressing. This technocracy is made of mostly academics: medics, toxicologists, health scientists on tobacco/nicotine issues, employed in public health and regulatory institutions (universities, health centers, hospitals, CDC, FDA and their analogues worldwide). As an analogy: if Bloomberg and its flotilla are the. crusade's armies, the technocracy is the holly priesthood. There is a symbiotic relationship: the technocratic priesthood provides public funded "scientific" legitimacy, to counter the image of Bloomberg's crusade as motivated only by the whims of a billionaire. Conversely, Bloomberg's activism energizes anti-THR research and public policies by making "protection of young people" a priority over saving adult smokers. Bloomberg's cash and lobbying also provides massive public diffusion to the research done by the technocrats, which is basically an effort (whether because of ignorance or cynicism) to over-emphasize and exaggerate harms from non-combustible products. Without the technocracy Bloomberg would risk becoming identified as a wild trigger happy cowboy, without Bloomberg's activism the technocrats (most of whom are not built to be activists) would be much less convincing to decision makers and to the broad public.
Excellent report. Thanks. There is only a missing ingredient: the tobacco control orthodox technocracy outside Bloomberg's flotilla and the WHO window dressing. This technocracy is made of mostly academics: medics, toxicologists, health scientists on tobacco/nicotine issues, employed in public health and regulatory institutions (universities, health centers, hospitals, CDC, FDA and their analogues worldwide). As an analogy: if Bloomberg and its flotilla are the. crusade's armies, the technocracy is the holly priesthood. There is a symbiotic relationship: the technocratic priesthood provides public funded "scientific" legitimacy, to counter the image of Bloomberg's crusade as motivated only by the whims of a billionaire. Conversely, Bloomberg's activism energizes anti-THR research and public policies by making "protection of young people" a priority over saving adult smokers. Bloomberg's cash and lobbying also provides massive public diffusion to the research done by the technocrats, which is basically an effort (whether because of ignorance or cynicism) to over-emphasize and exaggerate harms from non-combustible products. Without the technocracy Bloomberg would risk becoming identified as a wild trigger happy cowboy, without Bloomberg's activism the technocrats (most of whom are not built to be activists) would be much less convincing to decision makers and to the broad public.
Thanks Roberto, good analysis. We could say then that Bloomberg and the anti-THR technocracy are both like bacteria.