Cancer PR Firms Still Addicted to Tobacco

by Paul Goldberg, editor, The Cancer Letter

The American Cancer Society (ACS) had a problem: it wasn't a major player in cancer politics in Washington.

To move to center stage, the Atlanta-based charity turned to two PR firms, Shandwick International and, later, Edelman. To develop an overarching cancer agenda, Shandwick and ACS constructed a political structure called the National Dialogue on Cancer, and convinced former President George Bush and the California Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein to lead it.

The Dialogue is a dream opportunity for a PR firm to tap into a pack of multi-billion-dollar industries, including health care, pharmaceuticals and food. Unfortunately, the firms involved have been unable to steer away from another multi-billion-dollar industry: tobacco.

Four years ago, soon after Shandwick and ACS set up the Dialogue, The Cancer Letter, a weekly newsletter that covers the politics of cancer, reported that the firm also represented R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Holdings. The embarrassment of that disclosure in January 2000, caused ACS to fire Shandwick on the spot.

The Dialogue, however, continues. Meeting behind closed doors at sundry Washington hotels, at the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum, and at the Bush family compound in Kennebunkport, the Dialogue has been planning fundamental legislative and regulatory changes in cancer research and cancer care.

After George W. Bush became President, he appointed urologist Andrew von Eschenbach, a family friend and one of the Dialogue founders, to lead the National Cancer Institute. The Dialogue was becoming the ideal place to meet important players and influence policy. Money poured in. The Dialogue has lined up about $21 million in pledges and contributions, enough to consider hiring another big-time PR firm.

After a search last fall, the Dialogue chose Edelman, which, alas, was known for its 50-year history of representing tobacco clients worldwide, and - on one embarrassing occasion also uncovered by The Cancer Letter - ACS. Was Edelman prepared to make itself tobacco-free to get the Dialogue business?

It was. In October 2002, Edelman top executives Richard Edelman and Daniel Edelman signed a pledge that their companies would no longer serve tobacco clients. The letter pledged that Edelman and StrategyOne, two firms owned by parent company Daniel J. Edelman Inc., would not work with tobacco companies on any business, including marketing, corporate reputation, social responsibility, and research.

Until that dramatic pledge, Edelman sought to promote both tobacco and health, serving pharmaceutical companies and advocacy groups. The firm's health image was enhanced in part by Richard Edelman's position on the board of the CDC Foundation, a non-profit group that develops partnerships between Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and others entities. If the letter from the Edelmans was sincere, the PR firm would serve two masters no longer.

Peggy Conlon, a member of the Dialogue board and head of its communications committee, described the Edelman pledge as a dramatic conversion. "I am impressed by people who are willing to set aside the profit motive," said Conlon, head of the committee that selected Edelman and president and CEO of the Ad Council, a New York-based non-profit group that produces public service announcements. "There is a culture there that wants to do everything they can to improve the health of the country."

Yet, the pledge notwithstanding, the PR firm didn't sever its ties to tobacco. The Cancer Letter reported that eight months later, the company's office in Malaysia was helping British American Tobacco promote "social reporting," a political process that critics say is designed to preempt global tobacco control. Also, an Edelman affiliate continued to represent BAT in Russia, and a press release from an affiliate in Poland claimed completion of award-winning projects for Philip Morris Polska and that country's tobacco industry association.

These revelations notwithstanding, Edelman has managed to maintain the Dialogue account, positioning the firm squarely in the center of cancer policy. Its employees work alongside NCI officials, cancer researchers, and cancer professional societies. In July 2003, for example, the Dialogue announced a plan to create a tumor bank for genomic research. The day before the announcement at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research, an NCI staffer sent this email to outside experts who were working on the Dialogue project: "If you are agreeable, and there is sufficient press interest, we would like you to serve as spokespeople for the project. Jennifer Mallory from Edelman (cced above) will be organizing the press interviews over the weekend at AACR. Typically, such interviews are conducted over the phone, and take approximately 20-30 minutes to complete. If you are willing to serve as a spokesperson for the project, and have not done so already, could you please forward Jennifer and me your cell phone number? Jennifer will contact you over the weekend to provide you with more information about how the interview process will operate."

The press release distributed at the AACR annual meeting cites Mallory as the contact, without mentioning her affiliation with Edelman.

Edelman's History of Tobacco Flackery

Edelman's tobacco ties were an open secret. One connection was brought to the Dialogue's attention last fall, when Conlon's Dialogue communications group recommended Edelman for the job.

At that time, an Edelman-owned company in the U.S. worked for Altria Group Inc., the parent company of Kraft Foods, Philip Morris International, Philip Morris USA, and Philip Morris Capital Corp. It was this revelation that prompted the Edelmans to make their no-tobacco promise to the Dialogue. "They came back and said, 'We'll resign that business, and you have our full assurances that if you give us the business, we will take no tobacco assignments,'" Conlon said.

Four years ago, the firm was open about representing tobacco outside the US and covert about representing ACS. A week after reporting that Shandwick had designed and launched the Dialogue while also representing R.J.R., The Cancer Letter reported that Edelman was similarly serving two incompatible clients: the cancer society and Brown and Williamson Tobacco Corp., a BAT subsidiary.

For ACS, Edelman ran a voter education campaign, placing advertisements in conjunction with the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary. For Brown and Williamson, the PR firm operated a 45-foot-long "mobile media coach," a press center for the Indianapolis-based Team KOOL Green, which competes on the Championship Auto Racing Teams circuit.

At the time, Edelman officials said the company was not "engaged in public affairs on behalf of the tobacco industry in the U.S," adding that the Team KOOL Green relationship involved auto racing and was made by a Canadian office (The Cancer Letter, Jan. 21, 2000).

Still, ACS declined to renew Edelman's contract, and the firm has done no work for the cancer society since, said Greg Donaldson, the society spokesman. Though launched by ACS, the Dialogue is a separate not-for-profit organization, which appears to have a greater tolerance of conflicts.

Social Reporting: The Other Dialogue

Chalk it up to irony, but Edelman's Malaysian office was carrying out a campaign that was initiated primarily by Shandwick.

On June 13, Edelman issued a press release about scholarships for children of tobacco farmers and curers on behalf of British American Tobacco's Malaysian affiliate, BAT Malaysia. "We work with BAT off and on . . . specifically on the community relations and on the social reporting front," said Andy See, an Edelman employee who was listed as one of the contacts on the press release.

"Social reporting" is a curious creation of the modern public relations industry, a purportedly open "dialogue" with "stakeholders." According to See, "It's about being responsive to the needs of the stakeholders." Critics, however, describe this process as an effort by BAT to thwart the World Health Organization's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

The BAT strategy involves convincing its opponents and sundry others "to join it in dialogue," wrote Bob Burton and Andy Rowell in the Fourth Quarter 2002 issue of PR Watch. A respected political or cultural figure in every BAT territory is found to lead the dialogue, which culminates in production of yearly "social reports."

"BAT coaxed journalists, health advocates, tobacco control activists and government officials to participate in meetings whose purported mission was to advise the company on how to become a responsible corporate citizen," Burton and Rowell wrote.

The word "dialogue" figures prominently in the language of social reporting. "At British American Tobacco, we acknowledge that our products are risky, and we recognize the significant responsibilities of our business," said BAT Malaysia in its statement on social responsibility. "We also believe that a company like ours, with a century's experience of operating in diverse global cultures, which knows our products and its science, supports sensible regulation, and has a long track record of cooperation with governments worldwide, can make a real contribution to progress in reducing the health impact of tobacco," the statement reads. "Our goal is to seek solutions through dialogue with a wide range of our stakeholders. We see this as a better alternative to conflicts and stalemates which can often characterize debates on tobacco issues."

A Tale of Two Dialogues

Internal tobacco industry documents released earlier this year show that at the time Shandwick was designing the Dialogue for ACS, it was also working on the Framework Convention for BAT and designing its social reporting process.

The documents, obtained from the Minnesota Tobacco Document Depository, which was established as a result of that state's lawsuit against tobacco companies, include a copy of Shandwick's February 2000 presentation to BAT. One of the slides in the presentation describes its strategy to "rebuild reputation and restock the 'reputation reservoir'" through "a bold stroke to capture people's attention, get taken seriously, win a part in the debate."

By the time Shandwick prepared the presentation to BAT, it had spent years covertly representing tobacco companies in controlling the spin from litigation, newly released documents show.

After ACS fired Shandwick, the cancer dialogue endured, evolving on a separate track from the BAT dialogues, but the two dialogues are strikingly similar. Like the BAT dialogues, the cancer dialogue is organized around prominent figures: Bush and Feinstein. The groups seek to bring their opponents to the table, in effect surrendering to seemingly democratic rule by consensus.

The Dialogue's first meeting was held at the Bush library in November 1998. Soon after the cancer Dialogue was launched, Shandwick officials announced the creation of the Cancer Legislation Advisory Committee, a spin-off group that was given the task of designing a new version of the National Cancer Act.

The creation of the committee and appointment of its members wasn't an action of the Dialogue. It was the action of Shandwick and its client, ACS. The committee has produced the framework for a bill, which Feinstein has introduced. Now, the Dialogue is proposing programs and policies for NCI and other government agencies, applauding von Eschenbach's pledge to "end suffering and death due to cancer" in the next 12 years - and collecting money.

"Naturally-Occurring" Nicotine

Meanwhile, the BAT dialogues, too, were delivering their intended message.

As Burton and Rowell first reported in PR Watch, BAT's first Malaysian social report described nicotine as "a naturally-occurring substance in the tobacco plant which is thought to have a mild stimulant effect."

The report also noted that tar produced by burning tobacco "is thought to be related to some of the health risks associated with smoking."

In Malaysia, the social reporting meetings were organized internally by BAT, and Edelman's role was to "conduct private briefings for selected groups of people, and press briefings," Edelman employee See told The Cancer Letter. Also, he said, Edelman wrote the press releases that accompany the BAT reports.

Meanwhile, in Moscow, Imageland Public Relations, an Edelman affiliate, is working on brand development of BAT cigarettes. "We are working on a specific brand," Olga Naumova, an agency employee, said to The Cancer Letter. The company is preparing to re-launch Yava Zolotaya, Yava Gold, an updated version of one of the Soviet-era cigarettes. "It's a local product for the Russian market," Naumova said.

Imageland has performed other tasks for BAT Russia. These included corporate relations projects and public relations for three BAT-sponsored exhibits: women artists in the Russian avant-guarde art, the modernist art of Kazimir Malevich, and the works of his followers.

According to an Imageland press release about the women of the avant-guarde exhibit, "the Russian public was able to see the paintings of their famous compatriots in large part because of sponsorship by British American Tobacco Russia, which is continuing the glorious Russian tradition of sponsorship of the arts."

Imageland became an exclusive official representative of Edelman four years ago. According to a press release, it has "access to huge information resources and diverse experience of the global network," and its employees are able "to take internship with many U.S. and European offices of Edelman, as well as leverage their expertise during the annual educational programs by Edelman University Summer School." The company's Web site displays the Edelman affiliate logo.

Another Edelman affiliate, Business Communications Associates S.A. of Warsaw, stated in a May 12 press release that it has completed award-winning projects for Philip Morris Polska and the Polish National Association of Tobacco Industry.

Several Dialogue members said they are watching the Edelman controversy closely.

"We engaged in a partnership to provide funds to the National Dialogue on Cancer, because we want them to move this issue of tobacco much higher up on their agenda, because it is the cause of one-third of all cancer," said Cheryl Healton, president and CEO of the American Legacy Foundation, and a Dialogue participant.

The foundation, established with proceeds from the Master Settlement Agreement between state attorneys general and tobacco companies, committed $3 million to the Dialogue over the next three years. "The foundation works very hard to limit to the maximum extent possible the placement of our dollars with tobacco dollars," Healton told The Cancer Letter. "To that end, we received two assurances from the National Dialogue on Cancer. The first was that the National Dialogue Foundation, once it accepted our money, would accept no money from tobacco companies or their subsidiaries. And second, that the PR firm in service to the foundation had relinquished all ties to tobacco industry clients. It is on that basis that we moved forward with them. Our money cannot be commingled with tobacco money."

After a reporter asked about these projects, Edelman vice chairman Leslie Dach said the Malaysian projects would be terminated.

"I instructed our folks there to resign this project relationship," he said, calling back after taking a few minutes to investigate. "Our policy is that we don't do work for tobacco companies through our companies anywhere in the world, and when we find out that that policy hasn't been followed, we move quickly to correct it."

The following day, Richard Edelman sent a letter to the Dialogue's Peggy Conlon. "[The] activity by our Malaysian office violates our clear firm-wide policy," Edelman wrote in the letter dated July 23. "I was unaware of this activity in Malaysia, and we have instructed the Malaysian and Asian operations to resign the client. We take our commitments seriously. This should not have occurred, and we are issuing a firm-wide reminder of our policy. In addition, we will be taking all fees from this activity and donating them to charity."

However, nothing can be done about the Warsaw and Moscow affiliates, Dach told The Cancer Letter. "They are independently governed companies," he said. "We don't control their policies. They are affiliate companies, which means that we at times use them in their countries to help us implement projects." Edelman's Web site lists 39 offices and 37 affiliates around the world.

Conlon was sympathetic. "If anything has happened in Malaysia or some place on the other side of the world, I am confident that they didn't know about it," she said. Further, Conlon accepted Edelman's explanation that the work of affiliates is beyond the company's control. "If you don't own the company, how can you force them to resign business?" she said.

Stanton Glantz, an antismoking activist, professor of medicine, and director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California at San Francisco, said Edelman's 50-year history of service to tobacco companies makes it a bad hire for managing public relations of an organization promoting tobacco control.

"I think it just shows that they are not serious," Glantz said of the Dialogue. "The great care that smart people take to avoid such situations isn't just an ethical statement. It's also a very practical programmatic statement. You don't want [information] leaking out. It's like the CIA hiring the KGB to do their intelligence work for them, or Bush hiring Al Qaeda to do PR, because they have good connections to Al-Jazeera. It's just amazing, absolutely amazing to me."

Centralized Global Billing

A former Edelman official familiar with accounting practices said that several years ago, the company set up a central billing system, which required that all offices around the world create billing codes for all their accounts. "Edelman utilizes a centralized global billing system managed from their Chicago office by their Chief Financial Officer," the executive said. "To suggest that the leadership of the firm, which review the financials on a monthly basis, doesn't understand what BAT stands for is ludicrous."

Sources said Edelman has a variety of relationships with affiliates, ranging from equity partnerships to commercial relationships.

"Edelman suggests that they are unwilling to attempt to limit the activities of affiliates on behalf of tobacco companies, which can be simply done," said a former executive. "Edelman should refuse to work with any firm not prepared to take a similar anti-tobacco stance. The global commitment Edelman made to change 50 years of pro-tobacco advocacy was obviously not taken seriously enough to drive accountability through the firm."

Many public relations firms create multi-track systems, where purportedly separate units accept tobacco business, allowing the main corporate entity to maintain a no-tobacco appearance.

Dach said he didn't know how the Malaysian tobacco account slipped through the system. "It's not clear to me," he said. "And that's, in a sense, not important to us insofar that it shouldn't have happened, and it's very clear that it will not happen."

The company will not use its affiliates to hide tobacco relationships, Dach said. "We have a very clear policy that no Daniel J. Edelman company will work with tobacco companies on any business. We cannot control what our affiliates do. We derive no financial benefit from their clients, and our people will not work, and do not work, on these matters under these policies.

"If an affiliate attempts to refer work related to a tobacco account to an Edelman office, the company will decline," Dach said. "If they asked us to work on this, we'd say 'No.'"

Defining A Tobacco Company

The relationship between the cancer Dialogue and Edelman raises the question of what constitutes a tobacco company.

According to Dach, Altria, the parent company of Philip Morris and Kraft, is tobacco. "We were doing some research work, not for the tobacco company, but at the Altria level - for Altria - and we terminated that," Dach said.

However, the public relations firm continues to represent Kraft, a separately-traded company owned by Altria. "Kraft is a food company, obviously," said Dach said. "I don't comment on my clients' ownership, but Kraft is obviously a food company."

In the recent past, Edelman handled press relations for the Formula One Lucky Strikes Honda team, and it continues to represent teams on the Winston cup circuit of the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing. The firm's top entertainment official, Peter Land, lists NASCAR as a client. Land, executive vice president and general manager for sports and entertainment marketing, didn't return calls from a reporter.

Winston Cup, scheduled to be renamed Nextel Cup during the 2004 season, is watched by 75 million people, an audience that makes it second only to the National Football League. According to NASCAR, its fans are three times more likely to buy a product marketed by a sponsor than by a non-sponsor.

Since obesity may be a contributing factor to cancer, Edelman's representation of food companies may be problematic, too.

The PR firm's client roster includes the American Council for Fitness and Nutrition, a coalition that includes Kraft and other food and beverage makers who united late last year to counter the federal government's campaign against obesity. In addition to facing the prospect of regulation, the industry is becoming a target of lawsuits similar to those that have set back the U.S. tobacco industry.

Through ACFN, food companies deliver a message that echoes the "personal responsibility" campaigns of the tobacco firms. Instead of saying, "Eat less," the industry suggests that Americans take responsibility for their health, learn about nutrition, exercise, and keep their children trim.

"Staying healthy, active and well nourished is a lifestyle decision," the industry coalition states on its Web site (www.acfn.org). "Though it seems complex, the equation is simple - we all need to incorporate enough activity into our daily routine to utilize the calories we consume."

The very people who inflate the size of food portions are claiming to promote moderation, said Marion Nestle, chairman of the New York University Department of Nutrition, Food Studies and Public Health and author of Food Politics; How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health, a recently published book about the causes of the obesity epidemic.

"On the one hand, they are selling food in larger portions, and on the other hand, they are trying to do something about it," Nestle said to The Cancer Letter. "Well, I don't know how that meshes. Exercise is wonderful; I am totally for it. It's just that it's not going to solve the obesity epidemic alone. It's not possible to lose weight if you don't eat less."

NCI Director von Eschenbach speaks often about the relationship between diet and cancer, suggesting it as an area of collaboration between the Institute and FDA. "With regard to diet, there are extraordinary needs and opportunities," he said at the annual meeting of the American Society for Clinical Oncology last May. "Diet is an issue that for us - even from HHS - has become a major strategic initiative, because of the epidemic of obesity. . . .

"As we look at diet, and as we look at the need to further develop the science of understanding dietary factors and micronutrients, we also need to be working collaboratively and cooperatively with FDA in terms of how to validate the impact in a way that they can make recommendations with regard to dietary guidelines," von Eschenbach said (The Cancer Letter, June 6).

Edelman's Dach said his company is able to represent the Dialogue and ACFN. "I don't think there is any sense that representation of food companies and representation of those who care about improving the lives of those with cancer is a conflict," he said.

The food companies aren't a conflict, Conlon agreed. "In my mind, that whole initiative, as I understand it, is to promote healthy lifestyles. Gosh, I sure hope that the food industry isn't the new enemy, because I love eating."

NCI Director Von Eschenbach, who is also the vice-chairman of the Dialogue board, was unavailable for comment. "Why are you assuming that he would have the ultimate decision on the PR firm that they hire?" said Dorie Hightower, an NCI press officer, challenging a reporter.

Conlon declined to discuss the monetary value of the Dialogue's contract with Edelman.

"The amount of services they are providing for NDC is nowhere near what we would pay if we were paying as a for-profit client," she said. "They definitely have given us pro bono consideration, and they are going well beyond what anyone would expect them to do."

The Dialogue's newsletter reported that, "in early 2004, a [Dialogue-sponsored] public service advertising campaign will commence."

The message of that campaign is yet to be determined, Conlon said. "We haven't even framed what the specific message would be, and that would be for the board to decide at a later date," she said. "It could be prevention. It could be detection. That's really something that will serve up some topics for discussion and debate."

Whatever the message, Edelman stands poised to deliver it to the public.

A version of this story first appeared on July 25, 2003, in The Cancer Letter (www.cancerletter.com), Vol. 29 No. 30. It is reprinted here by permission.