Conflict of Interest - Redefined to Mean Only Industry
February 04, 2026 by substack.com
Conflict of Interest - Redefined to Mean Only Industry
In tobacco control, “conflict of interest” has quietly undergone a semantic narrowing so severe that it now means almost one thing and one thing only: proximity to industry. Not proximity to power, not proximity to government, not proximity to advocacy organisations, not proximity to one’s own past statements or professional brand, just industry. Funding from a tobacco or nicotine company is treated not merely as a potential source of bias, but as a moral contaminant that disqualifies arguments in advance. Meanwhile, other forms of interest, ideological, reputational, institutional, and career-based, are waved through as if they were morally neutral, or worse, invisible.
