Misinformation is an ever-present issue across many areas of public policy, but for tobacco harm reduction, it is now posing something of an existential crisis. The THR community is made up of many different voices, communicating many different aspects of the approach. By continuing to try and develop positive relationships with the media, can we help to change the narrative around tobacco harm reduction?

Enter GFN25 panel discussion ‘Media, misinformation and public health’. This session will open a discourse on the media’s responsibility to convey the science of safer nicotine products accurately, and look at the ways in which this can sometimes go wrong. A number of mitigating factors will be explored, including the time pressures faced by journalists, understandable difficulties in discerning reliable information sources, as well as the push from university press offices keen to generate eye-catching headlines. We hope to also generate discussion about potential solutions that we can take forward together.

Hosted by Christopher Snowdon, the head of lifestyle economics at the Institute of Economic Affairs, this session will feature a broad range of perspectives of the media representation of THR. Joining Christopher will be: Fiona Patten, a former member of the Victorian parliament in Australia who has campaigned on harm reduction policies for 30 years; Lynne Dawkins, an independent consultant, former Professor of Nicotine and Tobacco Studies at London South Bank University; Tommaso Di Giovanni, Vice President of International Communications and Engagement at PMI; and David Zaruk, an expert analyst specialising in environmental-health and science-based risk communication.



With this stellar line up tackling one of the biggest challenges facing the field, you won’t want to miss this exclusive GFN25 session!

Thanks to our media partner Regulator Watch!

RegWatch has been a steadfast companion to the Global Forum on Nicotine for many years now, so we wanted to express our gratitude and thank them for being an official GFN25 media partner. Featuring interviews with tobacco harm reduction thought leaders (including a number of current and former GFN presenters), RegWatch has been on a mission to highlight the regulation of safer nicotine products across the globe. If you haven’t yet checked out Brent Stafford’s phenomenal RegWatch interviews on GFN TV, you can watch the latest episodes here.

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The GFN Team