@article{46c2114c8ec64d62808ca148cbb68c21,
title = "Open doorway to truth: Legacy of the Minnesota tobacco trial",
abstract = "More than a decade has passed since the conclusion of the Minnesota tobacco trial and the signing of the Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) by 46 US State Attorneys General and the US tobacco industry. The Minnesota settlement exposed the tobacco industry's long history of deceptive marketing, advertising, and research and ultimately forced the industry to change its business practices. The provisions for public document disclosure that were included in the Minnesota settlement and the MSA have resulted in the release of approximately 70 million pages of documents and nearly 20,000 other media materials. No comparable dynamic, voluminous, and contemporaneous document archive exists. Only a few single events in the history of public health have had as dramatic an effect on tobacco control as the public release of the tobacco industry's previously secret internal documents. This review highlights the genesis of the release of these documents, the history of the document depositories created by the Minnesota settlement, the scientific and policy output based on the documents, and the use of the documents in furthering global public health strategies.",
author = "Hurt, {Richard D.} and Ebbert, {Jon O.} and Muggli, {Monique E.} and Lockhart, {Nikki J.} and Robertson, {Channing R.}",
note = "Funding Information: This work was supported by National Institutes of Health grant R01 CA90791 , “Tobacco Industry Documents on Environmental Tobacco Smoke-The Next Front” from the National Cancer Institute. Funding Information: The use of documents by individuals and organizations working to effect policy in their own countries has also occurred in Brazil, 52 Indonesia, 53 and Austria. 54 Furthermore, civil society organizations have used the documents in advocacy efforts to combat the tobacco industry's influence across the globe. 47,55–57 Researchers from approximately 70 countries have published regional tobacco document analyses. 58 Efforts from the $500-million multipronged tobacco control campaign, which is funded by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg 59 and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation 60 and which focuses on reducing the prevalence of smoking in low- and middle-income countries, have relied on revelations from tobacco documents. For example, the global tobacco control campaign funded by the Bloomberg Initiative (WHO's MPOWER package [ m onitor tobacco use and prevention policies; p rotect people from tobacco smoke; o ffer help to quit tobacco use; w arn about the dangers of tobacco; e nforce bans on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship; and r aise taxes on tobacco]) highlights documents produced to Minnesota plaintiffs and addresses the importance of revealing tobacco industry tactics. 61 Had it not been for the Minnesota litigation and the subsequent release of documents, only a small fraction of these events would have taken place in the past decade. Copyright: Copyright 2017 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.",
year = "2009",
month = may,
doi = "10.4065/84.5.446",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "84",
pages = "446--456",
journal = "Mayo Clinic proceedings",
issn = "0025-6196",
publisher = "Elsevier Science",
number = "5",
}