professor david sweanor - e-cigarette summit 2014
DESCRIPTION
Professor David Sweanor presentation from E-Cigarette Summit 2014TRANSCRIPT
![Page 1: Professor David Sweanor - E-Cigarette Summit 2014](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022070323/559cf2ab1a28ab94288b45e2/html5/thumbnails/1.jpg)
Prof David Sweanor
Adjunct Professor
Faculty of Law
University of Ottawa
![Page 2: Professor David Sweanor - E-Cigarette Summit 2014](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022070323/559cf2ab1a28ab94288b45e2/html5/thumbnails/2.jpg)
Evidence and harm reduction – what are the legal and ethical responsibilities of Public Health?
E-Cigarette Summit, Royal Society
November 13, 2014
David Sweanor, University of Ottawa
![Page 3: Professor David Sweanor - E-Cigarette Summit 2014](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022070323/559cf2ab1a28ab94288b45e2/html5/thumbnails/3.jpg)
Legal and ethical responsibilities
•These are important – and related
•Ethics informs how we should act
•Law codifies it
![Page 4: Professor David Sweanor - E-Cigarette Summit 2014](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022070323/559cf2ab1a28ab94288b45e2/html5/thumbnails/4.jpg)
‘Thou shalt not lie’ •Not a bad starting point for a discussion on ethics and consumer information
![Page 5: Professor David Sweanor - E-Cigarette Summit 2014](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022070323/559cf2ab1a28ab94288b45e2/html5/thumbnails/5.jpg)
The Noble Lie?
• We have learned that much deceit for private gain masquerades as being in the public interest
• Those in government and other positions of trust should be held to the highest standards.
• Their lies are not ennobled by their positions; quite the contrary
• Sissela Bok, Lies for the Public Good, in Lying
![Page 6: Professor David Sweanor - E-Cigarette Summit 2014](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022070323/559cf2ab1a28ab94288b45e2/html5/thumbnails/6.jpg)
The impact of vested professional interests
• Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
• Vested Interests are everywhere, and they shape world views.
![Page 7: Professor David Sweanor - E-Cigarette Summit 2014](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022070323/559cf2ab1a28ab94288b45e2/html5/thumbnails/7.jpg)
Moral psychology
• Six fundamental ideas that commonly undergird moral systems:
• Care, fairness, liberty, loyalty, authority and sanctity
• People are fundamentally intuitive, not rational
• When you ask people moral questions they reach conclusions quickly and produce reasons later only to justify what they’ve decided
• Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind
![Page 8: Professor David Sweanor - E-Cigarette Summit 2014](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022070323/559cf2ab1a28ab94288b45e2/html5/thumbnails/8.jpg)
Blinded by ideology
• An example: A belief in social determinants and not biological bases for nicotine use.
• Political orientation: Anti-markets, antipathy to ‘selling addiction’. Or . . . pro-markets and liberal on drug use.
• Anti-tobacco industry
• Often . . .
• Simplistically
• Non-strategically
• Counter-productively
![Page 9: Professor David Sweanor - E-Cigarette Summit 2014](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022070323/559cf2ab1a28ab94288b45e2/html5/thumbnails/9.jpg)
Responsibilities
•The Role of Consumer Information in Public Health:
![Page 10: Professor David Sweanor - E-Cigarette Summit 2014](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022070323/559cf2ab1a28ab94288b45e2/html5/thumbnails/10.jpg)
The biggest breakthroughs often come from two very simple principles: • Give people enough information to make
informed decisions
• Give them the ability to act on that information
![Page 11: Professor David Sweanor - E-Cigarette Summit 2014](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022070323/559cf2ab1a28ab94288b45e2/html5/thumbnails/11.jpg)
Victim Blaming
•People can only make decisions that are as good as the information provided to them.
• Robert Cirino, Don’t Blame the People,
![Page 12: Professor David Sweanor - E-Cigarette Summit 2014](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022070323/559cf2ab1a28ab94288b45e2/html5/thumbnails/12.jpg)
Responsibilities of Public Health Groups
•There are consequences from not meeting an acceptable standard: • Reputational, Regulatory, Legal
![Page 13: Professor David Sweanor - E-Cigarette Summit 2014](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022070323/559cf2ab1a28ab94288b45e2/html5/thumbnails/13.jpg)
Evidence: Where to set the bar?
• Should the onus change when the risk differential from the status quo is immense?
![Page 14: Professor David Sweanor - E-Cigarette Summit 2014](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022070323/559cf2ab1a28ab94288b45e2/html5/thumbnails/14.jpg)
How have we dealt with past cases of market transformation?
• The role of precedent
• Food, pharmaceuticals, automobiles, etc.
• Some innovation is welcomed.
• Some is only initially opposed.
• Some is destined to be a prolonged cultural war.
![Page 15: Professor David Sweanor - E-Cigarette Summit 2014](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022070323/559cf2ab1a28ab94288b45e2/html5/thumbnails/15.jpg)
Watch out!
• Unintended consequences of oversight from those concerned about unintended consequences!
• Administrative law – the evidentiary basis for getting laws vs. applying them.
• Fear of change protects the status quo.
![Page 16: Professor David Sweanor - E-Cigarette Summit 2014](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022070323/559cf2ab1a28ab94288b45e2/html5/thumbnails/16.jpg)
Tort responsibilities
•Government agencies and non-governmental organisations
•They CAN be sued
•They can lose reputation even if not successfully sued
![Page 17: Professor David Sweanor - E-Cigarette Summit 2014](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022070323/559cf2ab1a28ab94288b45e2/html5/thumbnails/17.jpg)
Understanding tort implications for tobacco companies
• They have learned from past experience.
• They cannot oppose reduced risk products that are an existential threat to the cigarette business.
• Anti-smoking groups have hopefully learned more than that Nietzsche was correct.
• ‘Choose your enemies carefully, for you will take on their characteristics’
![Page 18: Professor David Sweanor - E-Cigarette Summit 2014](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022070323/559cf2ab1a28ab94288b45e2/html5/thumbnails/18.jpg)
Obstacles or Opportunities?
• Finding a shared goal
• Science Council: "Science is the pursuit of knowledge and understanding of the natural and social world following a systematic methodology based on evidence."
• That systematic methodology must be based on finding the truth rather than supporting a pre-existing view.
• Objectivity, rigour, humility, empathy, messaging:
• Best practices from other areas of public health.
• Learning from other issues.