An international panel will explore a global web of anti-vape lies and how it influences the public’s perspective on vaping and safer nicotine products.

Headlined ‘the battle between innovation and bully tactics’, the seventh episode of The Advocates Voice, or TAV, will premiere at 6.00pm Hong Kong Time - or 10.00pm New Zealand Time - on Sunday, 11 July.

Led by Greece-based public health expert, Dr Konstantinos Farsalinos, the panel discussion will be simulcast on CAPHRA’s Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/caphraorg. Live questions from viewers to the panel are encouraged.

Hosted by Asia Pacific’s CAPHRA (Coalition of Asia Pacific Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocates), its Executive Coordinator, Nancy Loucas, says TAV 7 will make fascinating and timely viewing.

TAV is gaining a strong following among Tobacco Harm Reduction supporters and the wider public. It follows mounting evidence, identifying well-known figures and entities at the centre of false accusations levelled at safer THR products. Inexcusable attacks on THR consumer advocates are also growing.

“Billionaire philanthropists are using their money to influence the World Health Organisation (WHO) - and in turn governments who rely on their guidance regarding tobacco policies. It’s a sophisticated global web of lies and Dr Farsalinos and the TAV panel will expose the truth,” says Ms Loucas.

“Ignoring the science, WHO treats smoking and nicotine vaping the same. This disastrous approach towards safer nicotine vaping products continues to negatively impact smoking cessation rates, costing millions of lives globally,” says Nancy Loucas.

She says TAV 7 will also explore the role of billionaire philanthropist influence on the mainstream media and scientific journals.

“The same people funding academic institutions for their ‘research’ then assist in this research being broadcast via the mainstream media. It’s all about controlling public perception and promoting lies about anti-tobacco harm reduction,” says Ms Loucas.

She says some academics and scientists are effectively being bought and sold by billionaires and their foundations.

“The strategy to corrupt the public and academic narrative through funding research and influencing the media is out of control. As well as presenting their lies as science, university researchers and scientists’ defamatory attacks on THR consumer advocates need to stop. They must be held to account,” she says.

TAV 7 will discuss the best ways for consumer advocates to respond to such attacks.

“To think that vaping – the world’s most effective smoking cessation tool – is being demonised in such a systematic, global way needs to be fully exposed. TAV 7 will do just that,” says Nancy Loucas.

The panel will include leading Asia Pacific THR consumer advocates: Asa Saligupta (Director of ECST - ENDs Cigarette Smoke Thailand, Mirza Abeer (Director of ASAP Pakistan – Association for Smoking Alternatives in Pakistan), and media expert Jena Fetalino (Director of JFPR Philippines).

To view the TAV 7 promotional video, visit https://youtu.be/4Vh0jKVS3K8

Consumer groups in the Asia Pacific region have also launched a petition at change.org/v4v-petition that urges the World Health Organisation (WHO) to respect consumer rights and to stop demonizing Tobacco Harm Reduction options ahead of the next biennial meeting of the WHO Framework Convention of Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) in November.

For a free digital media repository on tobacco harm reduction in Asia Pacific - including media releases, images and graphics - please visit https://apthrmedia.org

About CAPHRA

The Coalition of Asia Pacific Tobacco Harm Advocates (CAPHRA) is a regional alliance of consumer tobacco harm reduction advocacy organizations. Its mission is to educate, advocate and represent the right of adult alternative nicotine consumers to access and use of products that reduce harm from tobacco use.

https://caphraorg.net/

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