Leading anti-vaping advocate and Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids president Myers to retire

According to foreign reports today, Matthew Myers, a well-known anti-vaping leader in the United States, will retire as president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids on July 1. He will continue to provide advice to the organization.

Since the 1980s, Myers has been involved in nearly every major event in the field of tobacco control. He played a significant role in shifting the focus of tobacco control from fighting tobacco companies to preventing the adoption of e-cigarettes and other low-risk nicotine products.

He created a fundraising giant to finance the organization and spread his anti-tobacco ideology. In its recent annual report, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids (TFK) reported receiving approximately $40 million in grants and donations last year. Its lobbying arm, the Tobacco-Free Kids Action Fund, received nearly $47 million.

Since 2019, TFK has managed billionaire Michael Bloomberg's grants to advocate for rules and laws aimed at preventing the use of e-cigarettes and other non-combustible nicotine products.

TFK received a $160 million grant from the Bloomberg Philanthropies in 2019 specifically to combat flavored e-cigarettes and received another large grant in 2023.

The new president of TFK will be Yolonda Richardson, the current executive vice president of TFK's global programs. Richardson oversees the organization's international projects, which focus on low- and middle-income countries (LMIC).

As an important partner in Bloomberg's global initiative to reduce tobacco use, TFK's international efforts advocate for bans and restrictions on e-cigarettes and other safer nicotine products, including in countries with high smoking rates. Richardson will also manage the Action Fund.

Myers and Compromises with the Tobacco Industry

During Myers' tenure, TFK has become a powerful force in legislation aimed at preventing the use of non-combustible nicotine products. He played a crucial role in creating the moral panic surrounding youth use of JUUL and largely coordinated the spread of misinformation that prevented many who would die from smoking from switching to e-cigarettes.

As a former congressional staffer, Myers built strong relationships with Washington politicians and the media, making himself a preferred source for advice or explanations on all tobacco and e-cigarette-related issues.

It is no exaggeration to say that without Matthew Myers' opinion and final approval, no regulations or legislation making it harder for smokers to switch to low-risk nicotine products would have been considered or passed.

Myers founded TFK (then known as the Tobacco-Free Kids Center) in 1996 with funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (founded by the heirs of Johnson & Johnson), the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, and the American Medical Association.

Myers played a key role in two major compromise negotiations with major tobacco companies—first helping to craft the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement and then the 2009 Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (TCA).

To create the MSA, Myers and state attorneys general conducted secret negotiations with tobacco industry lawyers to establish a system for making permanent annual payments to states based on tobacco sales.

The TCA granted the FDA the authority to regulate tobacco products, creating the agency's Center for Tobacco Products, which is primarily staffed by personnel aligned with Myers' mission to control tobacco companies. In fact, since the TCA was passed, major tobacco companies have destroyed or acquired smaller competitors and consolidated their market power.

The TCA was signed into law by President Obama in 2009, co-drafted and supported by tobacco giant Philip Morris (later known as Altria). The law allowed all cigarettes and tobacco products to enter the market in February 2007 but set a difficult FDA approval pathway for subsequent low-risk, non-combustible products. One U.S. senator referred to the legislation as the Marlboro Protection Act.

Vaping Sounded Good to Myers—Before It Existed

Before the TCA was passed, Myers stated that he did not oppose low-risk nicotine products that could compete with and replace smoking on the market. In 2006, as legislative negotiations were nearing completion, he told The New York Times that non-combustible nicotine products posed no greater health threat than coffee.

"For me, the challenge is not to eliminate smoking, but to eliminate the deaths and diseases caused by smoking," Myers told columnist Joe Nocera. "That should be the ultimate goal. If you have a product that gets 45 million people addicted and doesn't kill anyone, I would take that deal. Then you would drink coffee! I have to believe that if the market's incentives are such, over time, someone can design a product that provides the same satisfaction as tobacco without killing them, then people would flock to it."#p#分页标题#e#

Once these products emerged and consumers began to flock to them, he changed his stance. Since the advent of e-cigarettes, Myers has opposed them, advocating for flavor bans and other restrictions in the U.S. and calling for outright bans in low- and middle-income countries like India and Mexico. Myers has opposed all FDA authorizations for e-cigarette products.

Myers' retirement marks the second departure of a prominent anti-e-cigarette tobacco control leader this year. In February, Truth Initiative CEO Robin Koval announced her retirement.