The 11th Conference of the Parties (COP11) to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) opened today (November 17) in Geneva, drawing global health leaders and more than 1,400 delegates from 183 countries for a week-long meeting. The conference aims to strengthen international cooperation to combat tobacco use, growing nicotine addiction, and the environmental harms caused by cigarette products. Expected discussion topics include youth smoking, flavorings, cigarette butt pollution, aggressive marketing of tobacco and nicotine products, youth vaping, and measures to tackle the illicit tobacco trade.

Running alongside COP11, and just steps away, is Good Cop 2.0 — an event hosted by the Taxpayers Protection Alliance. Framed as a rapid-response and fact-checking forum to counter WHO discussions, Good Cop 2.0 seeks to “unite taxpayer-, free-market-, and harm-reduction organizations to challenge misinformation and present alternative, evidence-based perspectives.” Organizers say it is intended as an open forum for consumers, independent scientists, and journalists who are often excluded from WHO’s closed-door sessions.

On a Good Cop panel today, public health consultant Clive Bates, director of Counterfactual Consulting, summarized critics’ frustration over what they see as decisions affecting global tobacco control and public health being made in secrecy with little input from consumers or industry.

“There’s no harm and having discussions about the frontier ideas of tobacco control,” Bates said. “[But COP11 is] a really graphic illustration of the weakness of expert groups. The experts that have been chosen to come up with these figures are [basically] fringe fanatics in the tobacco control world. In any normal conversation with users or consumers, a lot of these ideas would seem mad.

“That’s the danger of getting away from the working groups. The working groups of parties have to think about the politics of actually delivering this to the actual public, whereas the expert groups are fanatics pushing forward an agenda to the extremes of what they think they can get away with.”

This article was adapted from an original report published on tobaccoreporter.com. All rights belong to the original publisher.