摘要：Objectives . The goal of this study was to describe how the tobacco industry collects information about public health groups. Methods . Publicly available internal tobacco industry documents were reviewed and analyzed using a chronological case study approach. Results . The industry engaged in aggressive intelligence gathering, used intermediaries to obtain materials under false pretenses, sent public relations spies to the organizations' meetings, and covertly taped strategy sessions. Other industry strategies included publicly minimizing the effects of boycotts, painting health advocates as “extreme,” identifying and exploiting disagreements, and planning to “redirect the funding” of tobacco control organizations to other purposes. Conclusions . Public health advocates often make light of tobacco industry observers, but industry surveillance may be real, intense, and covert and may obstruct public health initiatives. Public health advocates increasingly focus attention on the tobacco industry's role as “the vector of the tobacco epidemic” 1 (p206) and highlight industry behaviors that undermine public health and raise ethical concerns. 2 Industry-focused campaigns are effective in changing views of tobacco use, 3– 7 but the study described in this article shows that such a strategy may also invite aggressively conducted industry surveillance. Many businesses use “competitive intelligence” to learn about their competitors. 8, 9 For example, it is common for companies to request competitors' publicly filed business reports, to attempt to learn about sales, or to conduct analyses of competitors' products. However, tobacco industry intelligence gathering extends beyond other cigarette companies to include tobacco control organizations, which the industry calls “the antis.” Although such groups are not cigarette “competitors,” they do compete with the industry for public opinion and the ear of policymakers, and thus they are perceived as a threat. In this article, evidence from internal tobacco industry documents is used to describe how the industry responded to 2 such groups, STAT (Stop Teenage Addiction to Tobacco) and INFACT (formerly the Infant Formula Action Coalition), both of which were active during the 1990s in drawing public and media attention to industry behaviors.
