More than one-quarter of submissions from individual e-cigarette users made to the Australian government’s vaping reforms consultation featured text from an “astroturfing” campaign led by the tobacco and vaping industry, “bypassing conflict-of-interest” declaration requirements, a study has found.
The World Health Organization defines astroturfing as the faking of a grassroots movement that in reality is being controlled by a hidden multinational company or organisation, in this case tobacco and vaping companies.
