蘑菇传媒

This review explores the impact of pharmaceutical industry information and promotional strategies aimed at prescribers, bringing together evidence on how interactions between the pharmaceutical industry and healthcare professionals can influence prescribing decisions, contributing to important conversations around transparency, evidence-informed practice, and the responsible use of medicines. This is an important addition to the evidence base and reflects ongoing efforts to strengthen understanding of the factors that shape healthcare decision-making.

This BMJ Public Health study finds that effective public health policies for tobacco, alcohol and unhealthy foods are most likely when different types of evidence are combined as an 鈥渆vidence jigsaw鈥�, with different evidence supporting different stages of policymaking. Research on industry practices was seen as particularly influential, especially in tobacco control, while collaboration between researchers, advocates and policymakers helped ensure evidence was translated into policy action. The authors conclude that combining multiple forms of evidence with strong knowledge-sharing processes can strengthen regulation of unhealthy commodities.

This article argues that the UK鈥檚 Tobacco and Vapes Act, which prevents anyone born on or after 1 January 2009 from ever being legally sold tobacco, is significant not only as a tobacco control measure but also as a way of changing the social meaning of smoking. Rather than setting an age at which smoking becomes acceptable, the policy sends the message that smoking is never a normal or desirable behaviour, helping to further 鈥渄enormalise鈥� tobacco use across society. The authors suggest that, over time, reducing the visibility and social acceptance of smoking could discourage uptake among future generations, strengthen public health norms, and contribute to lower smoking rates and fewer tobacco-related deaths.

The variation of language concerning tobacco products and tobacco use is known to impact the understanding of related risks and influence behaviors including use uptake and product cessation. Transnational tobacco companies can use such complexities to change the acceptability of tobacco use and influence public understanding of related risks. These changes, in turn, impact tobacco use behaviours. Looking at variations in the language used by different groups can therefore offer helpful insights into tobacco use cultures and make imbalances of information between groups plain. This paper examines the language of tobacco use, specifically smoking, across a sample of health organizations (the National Health Service, the World Health Organization, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, and the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention), the tobacco industry (British American Tobacco and Philip Morris International), and in 鈥済eneral English.鈥�

This paper develops a comprehensive framework to explain how the tobacco industry responds after tobacco control policies are adopted and implemented. Drawing on a systematic review of 308 sources across around 50 countries, the authors identify five recurring post-adoption tactics: pre鈥慹mptive adaptation (e.g. stockpiling or early product changes before rules take effect), outright disregard of regulations, token or superficial compliance, strategic circumvention through product or marketing modifications, and indirect influence on how policies are enforced via intermediaries such as retailers or authorities. The study finds that circumvention is the most common strategy, though tactics vary by policy type, and highlights that industry interference continues well beyond policy adoption.

This article models the potential effects of introducing a tobacco price cap alongside tax increases in England to reduce smoking-related inequalities. It finds that limiting the profits and pricing power of tobacco companies, while still raising taxes, could lower cigarette prices for consumers less aggressively than industry-led pricing strategies, helping reduce consumption without disproportionately burdening lower-income groups. The analysis suggests that such a policy could both decrease smoking prevalence and narrow socioeconomic health inequalities, while also curbing excess industry profits.