ArticleAmerican journal of public health2015
Tobacco industry use of personal responsibility rhetoric in public relations and litigation: disguising freedom to blame as freedom of choice.
Article in American journal of public health, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 34 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
34 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Paraquat at 63-the story of a controversial herbicide and its regulations: It is time to put people and public health first when regulating paraquat.BMC public health · 2025Pooled it
- Reactance to Health Warnings Scale: Development and Validation.Annals of behavioral medicine : a publication of the Society of Behavioral Medicine · 2016Trial
- Persistent, Mobile, Toxic: The Effects of Chemical Warning Labels on Public Risk Perception.Environmental science & technology letters · 2026Article
- "I Was Expecting the Worst": Exploring Barriers and Facilitators to Lung Cancer Screening in Black and Hispanic Communities.Journal of general internal medicine · 2026Article
- Youth washing as a corporate social responsibility tactic of health-harming industries.Health promotion international · 2026Article
- Eradication of commercial tobacco related disease and death.Tobacco control · 2025Article
- Pointing Fingers: Who US Adults Blame for the Opioid Overdose Epidemic.Substance use & addiction journal · 2025Article
- Exploring Perspectives Towards the Gambling Industry and Its Marketing Strategies Among Young People in Western Australia.Health promotion journal of Australia : official journal of Australian Association of Health Promotion Professionals · 2025Article
- Indigenous peoples, tobacco use and the role of the commercial tobacco industry.Respirology (Carlton, Vic.) · 2025Article
- Australian parents' perceptions of the risks posed by harmful products to the health of children.Health promotion international · 2024Article
- Analysis of the Alcohol Industry's Corporate Social Responsibility Practices in Portugal.Portuguese journal of public health · 2024Article
- Tobacco industry narratives of e-cigarette use in the UK: a qualitative framing analysis.Health promotion international · 2024Article
- Unveiling viewpoints on national food environment policies in the Dutch newspaper discourse: an interpretative media content analysis.The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity · 2024Article
- Threaten, Distract, and Discredit: Cannabis Industry Rhetoric to Defeat Regulation of High-THC Cannabis Products in Washington State.Journal of studies on alcohol and drugs · 2024Article
- How do New Zealand youth perceive the smoke-free generation policy? A qualitative analysis.Tobacco control · 2024Article
- The impact of responsible gambling framing on people with lived experience of gambling harm.Frontiers in sociology · 2023Article
- Food as harm reduction during a drinking session: reducing the harm or normalising harmful use of alcohol? A qualitative comparative analysis of alcohol industry and non-alcohol industry-funded guidance.Harm reduction journal · 2022Article
- The politics and fantasy of the gambling education discourse: An analysis of gambling industry-funded youth education programmes in the United Kingdom.SSM - population health · 2022Article
- Gamblers' perceptions of responsibility for gambling harm: a critical qualitative inquiry.BMC public health · 2022Article
- Responsibility in Medical Sociology: A Second, Reflexive Look.The American sociologist · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
We examined the tobacco industry's rhetoric to frame personal responsibility arguments. The industry rarely uses the phrase "personal responsibility" explicitly, but rather "freedom of choice." When freedom of choice is used in the context of litigation, the industry means that those who choose to smoke are solely to blame for their injuries. When used in the industry's public relations messages, it grounds its meaning in the concept of liberty and the right to smoke. The courtroom "blame rhetoric" has influenced the industry's larger public relations message to shift responsibility away from the tobacco companies and onto their customers. Understanding the rhetoric and framing that the industry employs is essential to combating this tactic, and we apply this comprehension to other industries that act as disease vectors.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.