Revealed: ex-director for tobacco giant advising UK government on cancer risks

A former director at the tobacco giant Philip Morris International (PMI) was handed a role on an influential expert committee advising the UK government on cancer risks, the Observer can reveal.

Ruth Dempsey, the ex-director of scientific and regulatory affairs, spent 28 years at PMI before being appointed to the UK Committee on Carcinogenicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment (CoC).

The committee’s role is to provide ministers with independent advice. Yet since taking up the position in February 2020, Dempsey has continued to be paid by PMI for work including authoring a sponsored paper about regulatory strategies for heated tobacco products.

She also owns shares in the tobacco giant – whose products include Marlboro cigarettes and IQOS heated tobacco sticks – and receives a PMI pension. On social media she continues to engage with senior staff at the company, including liking LinkedIn posts for the chief communications officer and the vice-president of public affairs.

There is no suggestion that Dempsey has acted improperly or failed to declare her interests, which are listed in committee documents. She said she had always complied with the rules and that her contributions to the CoC were based on her scientific training and “decades of experience in the field”. She also said she was “no longer a representative of the tobacco industry” given she had retired and had disclosed details of her career and financial interests during the application process.

But her appointment, unreported until now, raises questions about the potential for undue influence and possible access to inside information on policy and regulatory matters that may be valuable to the tobacco industry.

It also appears to go against the principles of a World Health Organization treaty, adopted by the UK government, which aims to limit interaction with the tobacco industry to protect public health policies from interference. The treaty says that “there is a fundamental and irreconcilable conflict between the tobacco industry’s interests and public health policy interests”, so “government officials should exercise caution during interactions … in all cases” – and limit contact to when it is “strictly necessary”.

Sophie Braznell, who monitors heated tobacco products as part of the University of Bath’s Tobacco Control Research Group, said Dempsey’s position on the committee risked undermining its work.

“The interests of Big Tobacco are not ambiguous: they want to make more money by selling products, like IQOS and Zyn, as well as cigarettes,” she said. “In permitting a former senior tobacco employee and consultant for the world’s largest tobacco company to join this advisory committee, we jeopardise its objectivity and integrity.”

Martin McKee, professor of European public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, who has researched conflicts of interest in the tobacco industry, said: “This doesn’t look good. It is really important for public trust that committees like this are seen to be completely untainted by any associations with vested interests. This appointment does not appear to pass that test.”

Luciano Ruggia, director of the Swiss Association for Tobacco Control, described Dempsey’s role on the committee “shocking” given her history of working on research projects paid for by PMI. “She should not sit in this body at all,” he said.

Ruth Dempsey’s now-deleted profile on the Philip Morris International website.

PMI has a long history of lobbying and influence campaigns, including pushing against planned crackdowns on vaping. It has also invested heavily in promoting heated tobacco as an alternative to smoking and expects to ship around 140bn heated tobacco units in 2024, a 134% increase on its 59.7bn sales in 2019.

The CoC is part of a trio of scientific advisory committees that provide independent advice to government departments on the potential health risks of chemicals found in pharmaceuticals, pesticides and consumer products. Members are often academics and other experts and hold the positions on a voluntary basis, advising ministers on policy.

Prior to Dempsey’s appointment, the CoC was involved in reviews of both e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products, two of PMI’s product lines.

Dempsey is believed to have been appointed to the committee following an evaluation and interview conducted by a three-person panel, including a Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) official, after stepping down from her full-time role with PMI to establish her own toxicology consultancy in the summer of 2019.

While at PMI she played a key role in promoting the company’s interests. In 2017, Dempsey complained to a Costa Rican newspaper that existing regulations in some countries were making it difficult for PMI to launch IQOS, and suggested that countries should change their regulatory frameworks to allow the company to promote the advantages of IQOS to consumers.

Since being appointed to the CoC, Dempsey’s work has included helping lead a workshop on assessing cancer risk for an audience including representatives from the Health and Safety Executive. The workshop’s aim was to improve the chemical risk assessment process and regulatory requirements for carcinogens.

Her other private work has included promoting essential oils to “help reduce your toxic load” via her Science Speaks company, which is registered in Lausanne, Switzerland – near PMI’s headquarters. She also organised a panel discussion at a conference of toxicologists in 2023 about the benefits of working on scientific advisory committees.

It is not known whether her fellow committee members or the DHSC are aware of her history of promoting PMI’s interests in the media and calling for more lax regulation.

But Prof David Harrison, chair of the CoC, said members came from “very diverse backgrounds with many different declarations of interest”, and were appointed after “careful scrutiny”. He said the interview process involved a three-person panel including him, a lay person and a government representative and that “full consideration was given to declarations of interest and guidance available for appointments”. “Particular attention” was given in “sensitive cases” such as Dempsey’s, he said, adding that the principles of “openness, wide-ranging debate and transparency” were prioritised at every stage”.

Dempsey said she was “very sorry if anyone feels that my presence on the committee is inappropriate”.

When she joined she did not have any active consultancy agreements with PMI but said the two she has had since had been properly declared. She also declared potential conflicts of interest when topics arose “that could be related to work I was doing as a consultant to any company”.

“In the five years that I have been a member there has been no topic related to tobacco products. If there had been, I certainly would declare my conflict of interest and would always follow the guidance of the committee chair regarding participation,” she said. She added that she had “never passed confidential or privileged information to PMI, and would certainly never do so”.

PMI said: “Dr Dempsey retired from PMI over five years ago. The committee is responsible for the selection of the experts it appoints. It is false to suggest that PMI has undue access or influence over the CoC through a retired former employee.” The Department of Health and Social Care said potential conflicts of interest were managed by the committee chair and secretariat and published in annual reports.