Why the tobacco industry funded HIV/AIDS support organizations

Smoking tobacco leads to thousands of deaths a year in Canada.

In Canada, more people die every year from tobacco related illnesses than have ever died from complications due to AIDS. 

But according to research from Simon Fraser University, the tobacco industry used the HIV/AIDS crisis as an attempt to distract from the health concerns of smoking. In a paper titled "Public Enemy No. 1: Tobacco industry funding for the AIDS response" SFU researchers claim the tobacco industry played one health crisis off another, funding HIV/AIDS groups to gain clout with the LGBTQ community, and to delay government restrictions on cigarette companies.

Julia Smith is a Post-doctoral Fellow with the Global Tobacco Control program at SFU. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

When did tobacco companies first start funding AIDS and HIV organizations?

They started funding in the late 1980s and the early 1990s. And that's when the HIV crisis was really starting to gain a lot of attention and started to cause a lot of concern. And the groups and communities affected were mobilizing to address the crisis. [Tobacco company] Philip Morris became the largest corporate donor to the AIDS response during that time. They provided funding to all sorts of different groups for HIV research, to community groups, to church groups, and really put a lot of funding into AIDS programs.

What were the motivations? Why did Philip Morris and the other tobacco companies do it?

The documents we found show that one motivation they had for doing it was to distract attention from tobacco control and create competition for funding. So that then these organizations would say 'oh, you need to give more money to HIV/AIDS than to tobacco control.' They also funded LGBT community groups that were responding to AIDS, and then pay for pages in publications that target that community. They would say "Top 10 companies that care" and the top company would be Philip Morris. So that would be a paid advertisement, presented as evidence that Philip Morris is giving so much to the AIDS response. And that's really interesting because smoking prevalence is actually slightly higher among LGBT populations. And so it's very effective targeted marketing at a population they know smokes. 

Tobacco companies don't fund these organizations purely because they care. If they wanted to do something about public health, they would shut down.- Julia Smith, Simon Fraser University

But wouldn't a lot of people back in the late '80s and early '90s have also considered AIDS and HIV to be a bigger health concern than smoking? 

I think public perception was very much focused on AIDS because it was so terrifying. There was definitely a public fear around HIV/AIDS and that's exactly what the tobacco companies tried to capitalize on. Smoking is a leading cause of death worldwide. Much more than HIV/AIDS. But it's not as scary and terrifying as HIV/AIDS was. Tobacco companies don't fund these organizations, purely because they care or they want to help public health. If they wanted to do something about public health, they would shut down. This is a product you have to remember contributes to death in half of its users. This is a product that they profit from that is lethal. So providing funding to HIV/AIDS and addressing that public health issue, while contributing to another public health issue, that to me is hypocritical.

The full paper can be found here

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