Trouble in paradise?

According to The Times today:

A public health official responsible for tobacco and vaping policy dined with the e-cigarette company Juul and gave advice on launching its vapes in the UK, new documents reveal.

The information appears to have come via internal Juul documents and the official in question is our old friend Martin Dockrell who was Deborah Arnott's sidekick at ASH before he joined Public Health England (now the Office of Health Improvement and Disparities).

Funnily enough, Arnott is mentioned as well because, according to emails, she was present too when the head of PHE's tobacco control programme met representatives of Juul while attending a 'nicotine conference' (the Global Forum on Nicotine) in Warsaw in 2017.

Full story: Civil servant in charge of vaping policy advised e-cigarette giant

I was going to write about the report at greater length but Chris Snowdon got there first and because I can't improve on it I'll leave it here – Hired guns and hatchet jobs.

I'll simply add this. Chris takes the view, which I share, that neither Dockrell nor Arnott did anything wrong:

Civil servants are allowed to speak to people from industry. They should be encouraged to speak to people from industry and then they might draft better legislation. There are rules about meeting the tobacco industry but Juul was an independent vape company in 2017. Neither Arnott nor Dockrell are politicians, no money changed hands and there is nothing wrong with chatting to people at a conference.

On X, however, he describes the investigation as a ‘smear campaign’. Perhaps it is but I can’t help finding it funny that after years of trying to discredit tobacco companies and anyone who engages with the industry (even if it's only attending the annual Chelsea Flower Show), tobacco control campaigners are now the ones being targeted for engaging with "industry" – albeit the vaping industry.

According to The Times, Dockrell hasn’t commented but Arnott ‘disputed Juul’s characterisation of the meeting, saying it was a “misleading account of a discussion about the UK regulatory framework for e-cigarettes”.’

Instead she told the paper that ASH ‘occasionally “met with industry both to gather intelligence and to inform the delivery of more effective regulation and tobacco control measures” and denied it was inappropriate.’

As I say, I don't see anything wrong with that. What I find wrong, and hypocritical, is the indignation if a politician or civil servant should dare engage with the tobacco industry.

If it's OK for ASH and or a government official like Martin Dockrell to meet with the vaping industry "to gather intelligence or to inform the delivery of more effective regulation and tobacco control measures", why can't politicians and civil servants meet with the tobacco industry as well?

Finally, something else caught my eye in The Times report – a quote by Sheila Duffy, chief executive of ASH Scotland:

“The evidence of Juul attempting to influence health policymakers in the UK to promote use of their vaping products is alarming and emphasises the importance of civil servants always ensuring that engagements and conversations, even informally, with industry representatives are beyond reproach.”

Given that the 'health policymakers' she's referring to are Dockrell (formerly with ASH) and Arnott (CEO of ASH), that's quite a statement.

Trouble in paradise? Or friendly fire?

PS. I should add that Martin Dockrell once ‘liked’ a tweet that described me as a ‘smug apologist for deadly cigarettes'.

I could understand if he was working for ASH when he did that, but this was in 2019 when he was a civil servant.

Also, the words he liked were those of a former Juul executive. Fancy that!!

Anyway, if you want to know more about the great man, read on:

Job for the boy at Public Health England (May 2014)
Shout out for Martin Dockrell (February 2022)

Dockrell also instigated and then quietly ignored the results of an ongoing living evidence review on smoking and Covid.

We may never know why, but I wrote about it here (August 2021).