Global Action to End Smoking

Global Action to End Smoking (GAES)¹ is a grant-giving nonprofit foundation, based in the United States, and wholly funded by Philip Morris International (PMI).²

Background

GAES describes itself as “accelerating comprehensive, science-based global efforts to end the smoking epidemic, with a focus on marginalized communities and low- and middle-income countries (LMICs)”.³ It states that its areas of work are “Health and Science Research, Cessation Education and Agricultural Transformation”.³

It is led by President and CEO Cliff Douglas, former director of the University of Michigan’s Tobacco Research Network and the American Cancer Society’s National Vice President for Tobacco Control.⁴

GAES was formerly named the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World (FSFW), rebranding in May 2024. See below for details. FSFW has been described by researchers at the Tobacco Control Research Group as a scientific lobby group working to further the tobacco industry’s interests.⁵ It does this in diverse ways, including by attempting to increase the presence of industry-funded research in the scientific literature, while obscuring industry links.⁶

• For more on the organisation’s activities before the rebrand see Foundation for a Smoke Free World and Foundation for a Smoke Free World Grantees.

Relationship to the tobacco industry

GAES, under its former name of FSFW, was established in September 2017 with a US$1 billion funding pledge (over twelve years) from Philip Morris International.⁷

• Full details of PMI’s funding of FSFW can be found on the Foundation for a Smoke Free World page.

According to the organisation’s tax returns, between 2017 and 2023 FSFW received a total of US$407 million from PMI.⁸ In October 2023, PMI terminated its funding agreement with GAES (at the time still named FSFW), handing over a final sum of US$140 million, at the same time as Cliff Douglas was appointed President and CEO.⁹ It has been reported that Douglas “negotiated a split with PMI before taking the job”, although the terms of that negotiation have not been made public.¹⁰

GAES has said that it “does not seek or accept funding from companies that produce tobacco or non-medicinal nicotine products”.¹¹

As it stands, in July 2024, GAES’ sole funding source has been, and continues to be, money granted by PMI (which in 2023 totalled US$150,748,587 in net assets).⁸ Its newly-updated organisational bylaws do not prevent GAES from accepting future tobacco industry funding.¹² These bylaws also allow for future interaction with third parties without excluding the tobacco industry, stating that:

“[…]nothing in this Article or these Bylaws shall be interpreted to prohibit the Corporation from exchanging information or interacting with any third party in order to advance the Corporation’s goal with respect to its Independent Research Agenda[…]”¹³

GAES also introduced a new conflict of interest (COI) policy in 2024, which requires the disclosure of investments in tobacco and nicotine products when those investments are 5% or greater.¹⁴ A 1% investment in a major tobacco company could be worth over a billion dollars.

Activities

Since its rebrand, GAES has been approaching smoking cessation services in the UK, offering to meet with public health experts to discuss new UK grants.¹⁵ Some approaches to public health experts were made via Actum LLC, a lobbying and communications firm with offices in the US and London.¹⁶¹⁷ Despite existing as FSFW since 2017, GAES is described in an email invitation from Actum as “newly formed”.¹⁸

The World Health Organization sent out an alert in June 2024 about the GAES rebrand, saying that:

“WHO maintains its firm position that it will not partner with this organization and strongly recommends that governments and the public health community do the same.”¹⁹

Grantees

The following are organisations covered on Tobacco Tactics that received funding from FSFW/GAES, according to the most recently published tax return.²

• Alternative Research Initiative
• Centre for Agricultural Transformation (CAT)
• Centre for Health Research and Education (CHRE)
• Centre for Substance Use Research (CSUR)
• Centre of Excellence for the Acceleration of Harm Reduction (CoEHAR)*
• Euromonitor International
• Knowledge Action Change
• Rose Research Center

*See also Foundation for a Smoke-Free World Centres of Excellence.

For a comprehensive list of organisations that have received funding from FSFW see the Grantees page.

TobaccoTactics Resources

• Foundation for a Smoke-Free World
• Foundation for a Smoke-Free World People
• Foundation for a Smoke-Free World Centres of Excellence
• Foundation for a Smoke-Free World Grantees
• Foundation for a Smoke-Free World: Research Database
• Philip Morris International
• Influencing Science
• Influencing Science Case Studies

TCRG Research

• The Foundation for a Smoke-Free World’s rebrand is imminent, but this industry-funded scientific lobby group remains a danger to tobacco control, T. Legg, Tobacco Control Research Group blog, 14 December 2023
• Document analysis of the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World’s scientific outputs and activities: a case study in contemporary tobacco industry agnogenesis, T. Legg, B. Clift, A.B. Gilmore, Tobacco Control, Published Online First: 03 May 2023. doi: 10.1136/tc-2022-057667
• Paying lip service to publication ethics: scientific publishing practices and the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World, T. Legg, M. Legendre, A.B. Gilmore, Tobacco  Control,  2021 Nov;30(e1):e65-e72. doi: 10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2020-056003