Economist Group cancels cancer conference due to tobacco company ties

A division of the publisher of the Economist has canceled a high-profile cancer conference amid a backlash from speakers and attendees over its association with the tobacco companies, reports Mark Sweney and Anna Bawden of The Guardian.

Sweney and Bawden report, “Economist Impact, part of the Economist Group, which owns the eponymous weekly business magazine, was due to hold its 10th annual world cancer series in Brussels at the end of the month.

“The two-day event, at the Marriott Hotel Grand Palace, is touted as ‘shaping the cancer-control agenda’ and had attracted more than 300 attendees and 80 speakers.

“The Guardian understands the event was cancelled because of a backlash against ties that Economist Impact has with Philip Morris International, the world’s biggest tobacco company and owner of the most popular brand Marlboro, and Japan Tobacco International, which owns brands including Camel, Silk Cut and Benson & Hedges.”

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Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.