The FT today reported the launch of an online database called Stopping Tobacco Organisations and Products.
Announced in Cape Town in March 2018, STOP describes itself as a 'partnership between the Tobacco Control Research Group at the University of Bath, the Global Center for Good Governance in Tobacco Control, The Union, and Vital Strategies.'
I expected something quite impressive but, unless I'm missing something, what a letdown.
Take, for example, what appears to be the principal resource. It's a list of 'more than 90 organisations in nearly 30 countries' that are allegedly 'Tobacco Industry Allies'.
It includes all the usual suspects including Forest, the IEA, ASI, TaxPayers' Alliance etc.
On first inspection, however, when you click to 'Learn More' about each organisation it merely redirects visitors to the Tobacco Tactics website operated by Bath University's Tobacco Control Research Group.
If you want to know how poor that is, read my review written in October 2012.
Aesthetically the Tobacco Tactics website always looked terrible, even at launch. How difficult would it have been to transfer the information to a shiny new database on the STOP website, giving researchers the opportunity to edit and update it at the same time?
The STOP project is being given $20 million by Bloomberg Philanthropies over three years.
$20 million to create an online database whose principal resource is an existing database? If I was Bloomberg I'd be asking questions – or demanding my money back.
See 'Tobacco campaign group looks to name and shame' (FT).
Update: I've just found another 'resource'.
Click on a link and you can download an Excel file (!) that lists all 92 organisations referred to as 'Tobacco Industry Allies'.
To save you the trouble of visiting the STOP website you can download it here, if you want to.