From ‘Harm Reduction’ to Corporate Capture: How Tobacco Industry Marketing and Pharmaceutical Acquisitions Are  Reshaping Public Health Policy

 Session hosted by Corporate Accountability

In recent years, the tobacco industry has aggressively repositioned itself as a legitimate public health stakeholder by appropriating the language of “harm reduction” while simultaneously expanding its influence through sophisticated marketing strategies and the acquisition of pharmaceutical companies.

This dual strategy has created growing confusion in policy spaces, particularly at the World Health Organization (WHO Conference of the Parties to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control-FCTC) and national levels, where tobacco corporations are trying to present themselves as partners in cessation, innovation, and health system strengthening—despite their continued reliance on addictive products and their long history of interference in public health policy.

As WHO Member States prepare for EB158, this debate will critically examine how:

• “Harm reduction” narratives are being weaponized to weaken tobacco control and deligitimize the WHO FCTC treaty,
• Marketing strategies normalize nicotine use and undermine youth protection,
• Pharmaceutical acquisitions and health-sector investments are used to launder corporate reputation and gain policy access,

These dynamics challenge the implementation of WHO FCTC Article 5.3 and broader principles of corporate accountability.

The debate will address the following questions:

• How is the tobacco industry reframing “harm reduction” to influence global and national health policy?
• What role does modern marketing—digital, lifestyle-based, and youth-oriented—play in legitimizing nicotine products?
• How do pharmaceutical acquisitions and health-sector investments function as a strategy of policy capture?
• What risks does this pose to WHO governance, the EB agenda, and the integrity of public health decision-making?
• What concrete safeguards can Member States adopt to protect policy-making from tobacco industry interference?

Structure and speakers

• Introduction (and moderation)
  Daniel Dorado Torres, Tobacco Control Campaign Director, Corporate Accountability
• Unmasking the appeal. World No Tobacco Day Theme 2026: How Big Tobacco Targets Africa Through Predatory Marketing
  Sarah Ekwale, Associate Director at Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa (CAPPA), Member of the Network For Accountability of Tobacco Transnationals (NATT)
• Tobacco Industry pharmaceuticalization strategy. Case Study: Vectura and Philip Morris: the leopard has not changed its spots
  Prof. Nicholas Hopkinson (Europe), National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London
• Tobacco industry reframing “harm reduction”
  Bobby Ramakant (Asia), Policy & Operations Director and Health Editor, Citizen News Service (CNS), Member of the Network For Accountability of Tobacco Transnationals (NATT)
• Reframing “Harm Reduction” How Tobacco Industry Misleading Narratives Undermine Global Health Governance
  Florencia Leiva (Latin America), Legal and advocacy adviser, Coalition for Healthy Americas (CLAS)
• Closing remarks
  Jaime Arcila,Senior Researcher Tobacco Control Campaign, Corporate Accountability

Resources

• Big Tobacco’s Script for 2026, STOP
• What Is “Big Tobacco”?, STOP
• World No Tobacco Day 2026: Unmasking the Appeal – Countering Nicotine and Tobacco Addiction, WHO
• WHO Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic, 2025: Warning About the Dangers of Tobacco, WHO
• Tobacco Company Investments in Pharmaceutical & NRT Products. Tobacco Tactics
• Nicholas S. Hopkinson, Vectura and Philip Morris: The Leopard Has Not Changed Its Spots, Tobacco Tactics
• Les Hagen and Daniel Dorado, Goodbye, PMI: Philip Morris Removed from Canadian COVID-19 Vaccine Collaboration
• Raouf Alebshehy et al., Eleventh WHO FCTC Conference of the Parties: Encouraging Progress Despite Ongoing Tobacco Industry Interference
• Nicoletta Dentico & Ashka Naik, Who Gets to Sit at the Table in Pandemic Treaty Negotiations? Debate Opens Pandora’s Box of Vested Interests, Health Policy Watch
• Global Tobacco Control Conference Concludes with Decisions on Environment and Liability, WHO FCTC
• FCTC/COP9(10) Declaration on WHO FCTC and Recovery from the COVID-19 Pandemic, WHO FCTC
• Make Big Tobacco Pay Campaign,Corporate Accountability
• Blog: The People vs. Big Polluters, Big Tobacco, and Tentacled Corporate Monsters,Corporate Accountability
• Contre-feu – L’ACT bâche British American Tobacco https://www.contre-feu.org/lact-bache-british-american-tobacco/   
• “Drug Use, Harm Reduction and the Right to Health” – Report of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health, Tlaleng Mofokeng
  https://docs.un.org/en/A/HRC/56/523 
• Policy brief – Geneva Global Tobacco Control (GGTC) https://shorturl.at/nyAz1 
• Adapting Inhaled Medication Practice in COPD and Asthma to Avoid Funding the Tobacco Industry https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.2147/COPD.S337066 
• Vectura and Philip Morris: The Leopard Has Not Changed Its Spots https://thorax.bmj.com/content/77/6/537.long 
• World Conference on Tobacco Control 2025 – Dublin Declaration Dublin, Ireland, 25 June 2025
  https://www.worldtobaccocontrol.org/wctc-2025-declaration/ 
• Presentation by Prof. Nicholas Hopkinson
• Presentation by Florencia Leiva_CLAS
• Presentation by Sarah Ekwale_CAPPA-NATT
• Presentation by Bobby Ramakant
• Canadian Decision-tree steps on interactions with tobacco industry

Unpacking the landscape and power dynamics of public-private partnerships in global health governance

Session hosted by WEMOS 

Public-private partnerships are common and influential policy forums and actors in global health governance. Of late, for example, they have played a central role in governance of the COVID-19 pandemic, global pandemic governance reform efforts, and responding to health emergencies post-COVID-19 (e.g., Gavi’s provided 500,000 mpox vaccines). Despite these, among other prominent roles, little is known about global health public-private partnerships on a large scale. Moreover, there is limited public debate about their role in and influence on global health policy. Drawing on the newly launched Global Health Public-Private Partnerships Dataset, this session will address these gaps by presenting an overview of public-private partnerships in global health governance and facilitating a dialogue on their role, design, and power in global health.

Speakers

• Leah Shipton, Term Assistant Professor, School of Public Policy, Simon Fraser University
• Maty Dia, Lead – Population Council West and Central Africa GIRL Center; former Civil Society Representative, GAVI Board and GFF Investors Group
• Antoine de Bengy Puyvallée, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Centre for Global Sustainability, University of Oslo
• Myria Koutsoumpa, global health expert at Wemos, former civil society representative in the GFF Investors Group
• Moderator: Mariska Meurs, Global Health Expert – Finance for Health at Wemos

Objectives

1. Introduce and raise awareness about the scope and features of public-private partnerships in global health governance. This includes presenting insights from the dataset on the number and types of public-private partnerships active in global health governance, distribution of decision-making power within these partnerships, and their key characteristics (e.g., functions, health issues addressed, headquarter location, legal status).
2. Generate debate that examines the appropriate role, if any, of public-private partnerships in global health governance and identifies calls to action for ways to improve their design, purpose, or contributions to the field of global health.

 Structure

1. Introduction to the topic and panelists by Mariska Meurs (5 mins)
2. Presentation on key findings from the dataset on public-private partnerships in global health governance (20-30 minutes)
   Presenter: Leah Shipton
3. Reflections by an expert panel (20 – 30 minutes) on the implications of the findings
   Panel: Maty Dia, Antoine de Bengy Puyvallée, Myria Koutsoumpa
4. Questions and discussion with the audience (20-30 minutes)
5. Concluding remarks (5-minutes)

The panel will address concerns regarding the appropriate distribution of decision-making power between the different constituencies in global health public-private partnerships; their priority setting in view of LMIC health issues; the appropriateness of the functions they serve and the implications of these finding for decolonizing the global health landscape.

Resources

• The landscape of public-private partnerships in global health governance: introducing a new dataset | Globalization and Health
• Explore the dataset at Global Health Power Tracker
• “Quasi-public Partnerships: Multistakeholder Governance in an International Organization” (2025) https://brill.com/view/journals/gg/31/2/article-p186_4.xml?ebody=article%20details
• “The rising authority and agency of public–private partnerships in global health governance” (2024) – https://academic.oup.com/policyandsociety/article/43/1/25/7582336#437014412

Serious Food Safety Failings expose global health risks of unregulated online cross-border promotion

Session hosted by IBFAN

In November, a new US company called ByHeart recalled  its Powdered Infant Formulas (PIF) in the USA  because of risk of Clostridium botulinum contamination.  In January, 60+ countries specific batches of Nestlé’s infant, follow-on, pre-term and specialised formulas have been recalled because of possible contamination by cereulide – a toxin produced by certain strains of a bacteria namely Bacillus cereus that can trigger nausea and vomiting when consumed.(1) Austria’s Health Ministry has said that the recall is the largest in the company’s history, affecting more than 800 products from over 10 Nestlé factories.

The outbreaks highlight the systemic failures in formula production, regulatory surveillance, recall systems and crisis communication – that lead not only to  interrupted supplies, but to large numbers of infants vulnerable to contamination. This is especially problematic in the Global South and settings where the risks are greater, diagnosis is restricted and access to treatment is reduced. The global online promotion and sale through social media exacerbates these problems, especially when products not registered or regulated at national level. The idealising messages encourage unquestioning trust in the company .

Speakers

• Yasmine Motarjemi, WHO’s Food Safety Senior Officer from 1990-2000 and  Global Director of Food Safety at Nestlé and Assistant Vice-President (2000 to 2010)
• Patti Rundall, Policy Director, IBFAN Global Advocacy
• Nigel Rollins, Professor,  Queen’s University, Belfast.  Formerly WHO Maternal Child Health
• Elisabeth Sterken, INFACT Canada, IBFAN Global Council and Coordinator of IBFAN’s Codex team.
• Lynn Moeng Mahlangu, IBFAN Africa Technical Director, former  Head of Health Promotion and Nutrition in South African Ministry of Health.
• Dr Magdalena Whoolery,Breastfeeding International, IBFAN
• Moderated by Patti Rundall, IBFAN Global Council

Resources

ByHeart&Botulism: serious food safety failing expose online marketing risks

Nestlé’s credibility questioned as formulas recalled in 60+ countries over contamination risk

Presentation by Yasmine Motarjemi

Webinar on food safety Jan 21, 2026 Elisabeth sterken

Defunding Communicable Diseases: New Form of Colonialism

Session hosted by People’s Health Movement and Third World Network 

The session aims to engage with the agenda item on communicable diseases in the context of the shifting geopolitical and donor-funding landscape of the last 12 months. The US withdrawal of funding for communicable disease programmes has threatened the sustainability of these programmes, particularly in Africa. It has also challenged the health sovereignty of African states, who are being pressured to enter bilateral agreements to secure donor funding for their communicable disease programmes, even when these agreements may challenge their data sovereignty and contain unfunded mandates like expanding their surveillance infrastructures. In this 90 mins panel discussion, 4 speakers and a moderator will speak to the challenges – and emerging prospects for rebuilding health sovereignty – that have been thrown into the spotlight by the defunding of communicable diseases programmes in Africa.

Speakers

• Nithin Ramakrishnan, Third World Network
• Peter van Heusden, South African National Bioinformatics Institute
• Taime Sylvester, Namibia University of Science and Technology

Resources

• Juta Medical Brief, “Washington launches billion-dollar health pacts in Africa – with provisos“
• Ntobeko Ntusi, “US aid cuts are an opportunity to reimagine global health.”
• Kerry Cullinan, EXCLUSIVE: US Ties Global Health Aid to Data Sharing on Pathogens – Undermining WHO Talks
• TWN, Will PABS Bureau Sideline South’s Proposals for Standard Contracts?
• Public Citizen, Letter To African Heads Of State And Government: Urgent Need To Protect Sovereignty By Demanding Fair Terms In Health Agreements With The U.S. Government
• Geneva Health Files, The Competing Objectives of the Bilateral American Global Health Agreements & the WHO Pathogen Access Benefits Sharing System

Moving Beyond Addiction: A Health-Centered Approach to Substance Use

Session hosted by DIANOVA

Global responses to substance use are predominantly framed through lenses of illness, pathology, and criminalization. Policy frameworks, funding mechanisms, and data systems tend to prioritize substance use disorder and acute harms, while the majority of people who use substances—those who do not meet diagnostic thresholds—remain largely invisible in policy and practice. Nevertheless, these individuals experience significant health impacts, as substance use intersects with sleep, pain, mood, medication use, chronic disease, employment, civic participation, and caregiving across the general population.

Canadian data illustrate this dynamic clearly. Seventy-nine percent of people in Canada report substance use in the past year; yet 62 percent report never having been asked about substance use by a healthcare provider, and 83 percent say they have never raised the issue themselves in routine care. At the same time, substance use is estimated to cost Canada CAD 49.1 billion annually, with nearly half (46 percent) attributable to lost productivity due to absenteeism, presenteeism, fatigue, premature mortality, and disability. These costs are not confined to a small, visible population with diagnosed “addiction”; rather, they are distributed across workplaces, households, and communities.

The Substance Use Health Spectrum, developed by the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction (CAPSA), directly addresses this gap²². The framework conceptualizes substance use along a continuum of health and risk—ranging from no use, lower-risk use, and higher-risk use, through declining health and substance use disorder—rather than focusing exclusively on crisis or diagnosis. This approach highlights how stigma, policy choices, and service design determine who is visible, who receives support, and who is excluded, despite widespread health, social, and economic impacts across the spectrum.

Speakers

• Anthony Esposti, CAPSA
• Zara Snapp, INSTITUTO RIA
• Ernesto Cortes, ACEID
• Gisela Hansen, DIANOVA INTERNATIONAL

Objectives

By the end of the session, participants will be able to:

1. Understand the Substance Use Health Spectrum and how it differs from illness-only or disorder-based frameworks.
2. Examine how current policies, funding priorities, and public narratives center substance use disorder while overlooking the broader spectrum of substance use, stigma, and unmet need, including populations at risk who do not recognize themselves in prevailing terminology.
3. Identify concrete implications for global and national policy, including language, data collection, indicators, and governance structures that support more equitable, health-centered responses across the spectrum.
4. Explore the role of civil-society organizations, including those led by people with lived and living experience, in reshaping narratives, policy, and practice.

Resources

•  Presentation by Anthony Esposti – CAPSA
• Presentation by Ernesto Cortes – ACEID
• Presentation by Zara Snapp – Instituto RIA
• https://institutoria.org/publicaciones/
• https://capsa.ca/substance-use-health/
• https://www.instagram.com/aceid.cr/
• http://www.redlanpud.net/

Health Workers Are Not Targets! Making the Voices of Health Workers in Conflict Zones Heard

Session hosted by Public Service International

In her 2025 “Health and care workers as defenders of the right to health” report to the fifty-ninth session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, underscored the fact that:  “Health and care workers are crucial to realise and defend the right to health”.

Despite this, they have consistently faced attacks and been made targets in violent conflict zones, undermining their ability to adequately provide healthcare to the populace as well as perennially putting them in mortal danger. And this is done without regards to subsisting international humanitarian law by invading states as in Ukraine and Palestine. Armed non-state actors are also culpable as we see in Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Nigeria.

The cost in human lives has been soaring in recent years. At least 927 health workers were verified to have been killed in 2024 alone. This was almost double the 480 killed in 2023 which itself was double the numbers of 2022. Then there is the trauma faced by those that are not killed. Even after the conflict is over, they are faced with PTSD.

This terrible reality is not acceptable. Yet it continues. To stop this relentless targeting of health and care workers, we need to stand up for health and care workers. We must collectively and consistently say Enough Is Enough! Health Workers Are Not Targets! That starts with listening to the voices of the affected health and care workers from across the world.

This session will bring the UN Special Rapporteur, Dr Mofokeng, and representative voices of health workers on the frontlines of some of the most debilitating conflict zones in the world to the discussion. They will tell the lived stories of what they are going through and how we could all help to make a difference in driving home the message that health and care workers must not be targets in conflict zones.

Speakers

• Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng; UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health
• Dr Jihad Attal; General Union of Health Services Workers (GUHSW), Gaza
• Dr Sara Abdelgalil; Sudanese Doctors Union, UK (SDU-UK), President 2017-2020.
• Mr Oleh Panasenko; President Free Trade Union of Medical Workers of Ukraine (FTUMWU)
• Comrade (Dr) Kabiru Ado Sani Minjibir; President, Medical and Health Workers’ Union of Nigeria (MHWUN)
• Moderator Bàbá Ayé; Health and Social Services Sector Officer, PSI

Resources

• A/HRC/59/48: Health and care workers as defenders of the right to health – Report of Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health

• A/80/184: Health and care workers: the oath takers and defenders of the right to health – Report of the Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, Tlaleng Mofokeng

From Resolution to Reality: Strengthening the WHO ECO Framework for Safe Surgery, Anesthesia, Critical Care, and Pediatric Care

Session hosted by International Association for Hospice and Palliative Care

This policy debate convenes clinical and global-health leaders to examine critical system-level gaps in the WHO Emergency, Critical, and Operative Care (ECO) Draft Strategy, which may undermine safe and equitable implementation if left unaddressed. The draft strategy could more robustly operationalize the foundational systems required for effective care delivery—particularly access to medicines including essential palliative care medicines for adults and children, infrastructure, oxygen and energy systems, anesthesia safety, symptom control, end-of-care, pediatric surgery, and integrated surgical–critical care.

The discussion will focus on how ECO implementation risks enabling nominal expansion of services—such as operating rooms, ICUs, and emergency units—without guaranteeing the functional capacity required to deliver safe care across the life course. This includes the absence of systems for pain and symptom management, ethical decision-making, and care for patients with life-limiting conditions, gaps that directly compromise patient safety and quality of care. Panelists will address how these gaps disproportionately affect children, surgical patients, and the critically ill, especially in low- and middle-income countries.

Each panelist will address a complementary domain central to ECO implementation:

• Access to medicines, the Essential Palliative Care Package for Adults and Children (Dr Tania Pastrana)
• Anesthesia as a continuous, cross-cutting patient-safety system rather than a procedural adjunct (Dr. Imabong Chinedozi)
• Policy and advocacy for global availability of essential surgery (Dr Fanus Dreyer)
• Surgery and critical care integration, including trauma systems and ICU functionality beyond bed designation (Dr Emmanuel Maska)
• Global access to and availability of appropriate anesthesia (Dr Carolina Haylock-Loor)
• WHO ECO Strategy (Dr Teri Reynolds) tbc

The purpose of the debate is to be constructive and forward-looking. It is not intended to reopen the ECO Resolution, but rather to generate technically sound, consensus-based inputs that can inform WHO Secretariat guidance, technical annexes, or implementation frameworks presented at the World Health Assembly.

The expected outcome is a clear set of policy-relevant recommendations to help ensure that ECO implementation delivers safe, functional, and equitable care, that addresses survival, suffering, and dignity across the life course, rather than unsafe scale-up, and that investments aligned with ECO produce measurable health impact.

Speakers

• Dr. Tania Pastrana, IAHPC
• Dr. Carolina Haylock-Loor, WFSA
• Dr. Imaobong Chinedozi, JOHN HOPKINS SCHOOL OF MEDICINE
• Dr Vinay Nadkarni, SCCM
• Dr. Fanus Dreyer, INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION SURGICAL COLLEGES
• Dr. Emmanuel Maska, GLOBAL SURGERY FOUNDATION
• Dr Lee Wallis, WHO
• Dr. John Sampson, G4 ALLIANCE, moderator

Resources

• G2H2- IAHPC Policy Debate
• WHA 67/18 – Palliative Care resolution (2014)
• Lancet Commission on Global Surgery (2015)
• Lancet Commission on Palliative Care and Pain Relief (2018)
• WHO–World Bank NSOAP Guidance
• WHO–UNICEF Oxygen Roadmap (2023)
• WHO–UNICEF Energy Access for Health Facilities
• Global Initiative for Children’s Surgery (GICS)
• Every Newborn Action Plan (WHO/UNICEF)
• WHA 76.8 – Emergency, Critical and Operative Care Resolution (2023)     

Blended Financing for Healthcare in Palestine

Session hosted by Global Surgery Umbrella

The starting point are the healthcare costs of the Ministry of Health in Palestine and which financing methods and governance mechanisms can be made possible. The discussion will explore these options, for example diaspora remittances, and how to establish transparent funding mechanisms, including partnerships with local NGOs and the creation of special purpose vehicles for financial oversight that can address Palestine’s ambition to develop a Universal Health Coverage project in the West Bank.

Speakers

• Dr. Rand Salman, Health Director, Anera, previous Head of Palestine National Institute of Public Health
• Dr Yousef Takrouri, Chairman of The Palestinian Private and Non-profit Hospitals Union
• Kayed Marei, Secretary General of the Palestinian Insurance Federation
• Hugo Tay, Advisor to the Health Minister of Palestine
• Russel Marsh, Expert in healthcare infrastructure finance and high impact humanitarian capital allocation

PABS Negotiations in the Final Stretch. Towards a fair pandemic system or cementing voluntary mechanisms?

Session hosted by Global Policy Forum Europe, Medico International, Brot für die Welt 

Although the Pandemic Treaty was adopted at WHA78, its core mechanism for ensuring equitable access to vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics remains unresolved. As the World Health Assembly approaches its 79th session in May 2026, negotiations on the Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing (PABS) System enter their final and decisive phase. In the upcoming months, governments will negotiate under intense time pressure—while industry lobbying and geopolitical interests threaten to dilute or delay meaningful commitments.

This online event brings together experts to assess the state of play, the political dynamics and identify the limits of the future PABS system in order to prevent the inequities witnessed among others during COVID-19. We will also discuss how civil society can monitor, engage, and apply pressure during this critical final stretch of negotiations and beyond. Join us to understand what is at stake—and how we can help ensure real global equity rather than a voluntary system dependent on industry goodwill.

Speakers

• Julia Stoffner, Brot für die Welt
• Priti Patnaik, Geneva Health Files
• Dr. Pedro Alejandro Villarreal Lizárraga, German Institute for International and Security Affairs
• Felix Litschauer, medico international
• Yuanqiong HU, Médecins Sans Frontières
• Moderator, Karolin Seitz, Global Policy Forum Europe