Profiles in Courage - The World Health Organization’s Lone Dissenters

The Eleventh Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP11) to the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) was held in Geneva, Switzerland, from November 17-22. Member states sent delegations, and these representatives were expected to stick to the party line that vaping, heat-not-burn products and, incredibly, nicotine pouches are just as harmful as cigarettes and should play no role in smoking cessation. This dogma contradicts the wealth of evidence on these products’ relative safety and effectiveness as quit-smoking aids. Yet, there was a sea of conformity at COP11, and few dared to swim against the current. Member states such as Serbia and New Zealand courageously stood up for harm reduction even if it made WHO bureaucrats feel uncomfortable. For bringing some much-needed truth to a global agency untethered from reality, these dissenting countries are Profiles in Courage.
 
The WHO prefers that global taxpayers—who fund its operations—are left in the dark about what happens in its conferences.  The majority of COP11 was not accessible to the public or media that weren’t in attendance. Some portions of the week-long conference were live-streamed, including the opening and closing plenary sessions, but the majority of the meetings and discussions were not publicly viewable. In the sessions that were accessible, though, it quickly became clear that there were growing cracks in the WHO’s supposed consensus. As World Vapers’ Alliance Director Michael Landl noted, “Several countries, including Albania, North Macedonia, Serbia, New Zealand, The Gambia, Mozambique, and Saint Kitts and Nevis, openly voiced support for tobacco harm reduction and evidence-based regulatory approaches. At the same time, a number of influential states remained committed to traditional restrictive models, notably Brazil, India, and Denmark, underscoring an increasingly visible global divide.” But because most of the WHO’s sessions are closed, the public will never get more than a glimmer at the internal debate and dissent that member nations are bringing to the table. TPA has long questioned the WHO’s integrity, and for good reason. The opaque decision-making process and lack of transparency are concerning, especially when these WHO decisions will directly impact consumers and business owners worldwide. The lack of accountability within the WHO risks decisions being made without public input and hinders effective public health responses. And because the WHO reserves the right to restrict information “which may adversely affect WHO’s relations with a Member State or other intergovernmental organization,” even simple (yet illuminating) disagreements between delegations at WHO conferences will never see the light of day.
 
Due to these legitimate concerns regarding the WHO’s dubious practices, TPA simultaneously hosted the Conference of the People (COP), aka “Good COP 2.0,” to counter the WHO’s “Bad COP.” Good COP 2.0 also took place in Geneva, Switzerland, and included 39 experts from 22 different countries. Unlike the WHO’s COP11, TPA’s Good COP 2.0 welcomed a wide array of viewpoints and was livestreamed on TPA’s YouTube page for those who wanted to attend virtually and participate in the conference or watch it later. TPA has long supported adult access to tobacco harm reduction (THR) products like e-cigarettes, heated tobacco, nicotine pouches, and smokeless products. THR strategies improve health outcomes for adult smokers and have proven to be effective tools in helping millions of adults kick the deadly habit of combustible tobacco. If improving public health is the objective, then THR strategies must be prioritized, not shunned. Silencing those with differing opinions harms consumers seeking alternatives to quit, and the WHO should be ashamed for not sharing the full discussions held at COP11 with the public. If the WHO has nothing to fear, they should have nothing to hide.
 
The public deserves to see the full lengths that countries like Serbia, North Macedonia, and Mozambique went through to advocate for THR. These delegations were filled with Profiles in Courage, and they deserve a hero’s applause in the light of day.
 
American Families Pay The Price For Excessive Litigation
 
Over the last five years, inflation has crushed American families. Despite great progress over the past year thanks to President Donald Trump, many household budgets are still stretched too thin. To make things even worse, the American economy is losing hundreds of billions each year due to out-of-control tort litigation. To address America’s affordability crisis, legislators, regulators, and courts can and must curb the expansion of costly, profit-driven lawsuits. For years, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Institute for Legal Reform has been sounding the alarm on the costs of such lawsuits. The total cost of the abuse amounted to $529 billion in 2022, equal to about 2% of America’s entire economic output. For businesses, tort costs are increasing by an average of 8.7% a year.  These litigation-related costs currently equate to $4,207 per American family each year, with households in some states paying far more. Californians are hit with an annual “tort tax” of $5,429 and New Yorkers face a tort burden of more than $7,000 each year. This increasingly high economic cost can be seen in rising prices, fewer jobs, and lost innovation and product choices.  
 
Out-of-control tort litigation makes American businesses less competitive, decreases worker productivity, and discourages companies from investing in their operations – instead having to hold money back for the potential of a rent-seeking lawsuit.  However, some states are demonstrating that it’s possible to greatly reduce excessive tort costs. West Virginia legislators passed reforms that introduced more transparency in predatory third-party litigation financing (TPLF). The measure also addressed the consequences of misleading legal advertising. These and other reforms resulted in a 20% reduction in West Virginia tort costs from 2016 to 2022, giving the state the lowest per-household cost in the nation – at about half the national average. TPLF is just one of the many tools in trial lawyers’ playbook, and it is a significant driver of expensive mass tort litigations. Mass torts promoted by plaintiff firms cost targeted corporate defendants billions of dollars in settlements. Hedge funds, financial endowments, and other big-money investors provide monetary backing for widespread advertising campaigns to bring in individual claimants and cover the other upfront costs of filing suits. In return, they share in the proceeds of the decision, splitting their profits with attorneys before the actual claimants are paid. 
 
The tactics of trial lawyers, which can include junk science spurred by lax evidentiary standards, is seldom checked by lawmakers, allowing trial lawyers to abuse U.S. courts. At the same time, investors fund litigations, seeking profits, not justice. States need to address these evidentiary standards to ensure judgments are based on sound facts, rather than conjecture or selectively curated statistics. There is hope for nationwide fixes to America’s excessive legal environment, with several TPLF-reform bills introduced in Congress this year. On Nov. 18, Protecting Our Courts from Foreign Manipulation Act, sponsored by Rep. Ben Cline, R-Va., passed out of the House Judiciary Committee and now awaits a vote on the House floor. While changes may need to be made to Rep. Cline’s bill in the coming months in order for it to pass into law, it is encouraging that members of Congress have taken note of the pressing nature of this issue.  
 
Such is the case with another TPLF bill, Litigation Transparency Act, sponsored by California Republican Rep. Darrell Issa. Ensuring this bill is ready for passage would underscore Congress’s commitment to addressing the issue. Excessive tort litigation is undermining the U.S. legal system, harming consumers, and fueling inflation. Commonsense reforms would bring more transparency in the legal process, reducing the financial burden of litigation and giving consumers and businesses a much-needed break. 

 
Blogs:

Monday: MFN Is Not What the Doctor Ordered

Tuesday: NDAA Expands Socialized Medicine and The Destruction of Protectionism

Wednesday: Celebrating Bond Returns While the House Burns

Thursday: TPA Urges Healthcare Reform

Friday: TPA Releases Brief on Higher Education Reforms 

Have a great weekend!



David Williams
President
Taxpayers Protection Alliance
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