Doctors have criticised the organisation responsible for protecting the nation’s health over its work with a vaping pressure group that is itself linked to the world’s largest multinational tobacco company.

Public Health England paid £40,000 for a series of YouTube videos co-produced by the New Nicotine Alliance (NNA) and held numerous meetings with the group, despite its ties to Philip Morris International, an investigation by the Bureau has revealed.

A strict international treaty, to which the UK is a signatory, severely limits contact between tobacco companies and ministers and public health officials, but the rules do not apply to the NNA, which says it campaigns for alternatives to cigarettes in order to protect public health.

It claims to be “completely independent” but has also described a proposed ban on smoking in the UK as “sinister” and naive. Moreover, a complex network links the group to the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World, an influential and well-funded organisation that the World Health Organization has branded a front group for Philip Morris.

The Foundation was set up in 2017 by Philip Morris, which pledged $1bn in funding over 12 years to the “independent body” to support research into alternatives to tobacco. However, many researchers have refused to accept grants from the Foundation, arguing that it is an attempt by the cigarette company to rehabilitate its image.

Until recently, two directors of a communications agency that has been granted more than $3m from the Foundation were also members of the NNA’s board.

When contacted by the Bureau, Public Health England said it would not have worked with the NNA if it had known about those links.

Earlier this month Jo Churchill, the health minister, told parliament the government “remain firmly committed" to the strict international treaty which prevents tobacco companies influencing health policy



Martin McKee, professor of European public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said: “It is totally unacceptable for people with links to the tobacco industry to be engaged with official bodies involved in public health. This demands complete transparency and avoidance of anything that can, in any way, raise suspicions of inappropriate influence.”

The NNA said it did not receive any direct funding from the tobacco industry. Martin Cullip, the group’s chairman said: “We are a tiny organisation built on the work of volunteers trying to represent the interests of smokers and vapers who are at last finding a cheap, effective and pleasurable way of quitting smoking.”