Topic Originator: OzPar
Date: Fri 1 Oct 10:46
Cigarettes are the only legal consumer product that kill up to half of their users when consumed exactly as the manufacturer intended. The diseases they cause cost nations` health systems billions a year.
Philip Morris International (PMI) is one of the global leaders in the cigarette supply chain. But with steady declines in cigarette sales over the past 20 years, tobacco companies such as Philip Morris are now attempting to market themselves as health-care companies with visions for a “smoke-free future”.
One of the industry’s first moves was to manufacture non-cigarette nicotine products, such as nicotine replacement therapy to help people quit smoking.
In the latest move to diversify its portfolio, Philip Morris has acquired British health-care company Vectura Group Plc, at a cost of more than £1 billion.
Vectura specialises in manufacturing inhalation products such as commonly used inhalers (or puffers) and nebulisers that help people with asthma and lung disease to breathe.
There are many concerns about Philip Morris’s takeover of Vectura. But ultimately the most significant could be that it is used to buy “a seat at the table” with health care policymakers and professionals, meaning they could have a say in the development of government policies.
The tobacco industry remains one of the world’s most lethal. And Philip Morris continues to undermine public health messages, while trying to disguise itself as a health brand.
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