We were surprised to discover an article in the November 2025 issue of Le Monde Dentaire Suissea entitled “Health aspects related to smoking cessation aids. Oral tobacco products: a reduced risk of ‘smoking-related diseases’“(1)b. The article describes a meta-analysis comparing oral tobacco products with cigarettes in terms of health risks.
Upon examining the meta-analysis cited in this article, we found that it was conducted by employees of Altria, the parent company of Philip Morris USA. Entitled “Comparative disease risks associated with cigarette smoking and use of moist smokeless tobacco and snus: an umbrella review of epidemiological evidence from the United States and Western Europe”(2), this study was published in 2025 in the scientific journal BMC Public Health.
However, the Monde Dentaire Suisse article makes no mention of this link with the cigarette manufacturer. Disseminating work produced by the tobacco industry, whose history of scientific manipulation and misinformation is well documented, without explicitly warning readers, constitutes a major violation of the rules of scientific integrity(3).
A well-documented issue
It is essential to remember that, for more than 70 years, the tobacco and nicotine industry has relentlessly attempted to influence science, not in the interests of scientific progress or the public, but solely to protect its profits. When confronted with scientific findings highlighting the harmfulness of its products, the tobacco industry deploys sophisticated strategies to spread false information, sow doubt, minimize risks, and discredit the scientists behind these discoveries(4, 5).
Its practices of interference in the medical field are well documented. According to Tobacco Tactics, an independent platform at the University of Bath (UK), the tobacco industry has long targeted healthcare professionals, including dentists(6). It does this in particular by:
participating in dentistry and oral health conferences,
sponsoring professional events,
funding or conducting research,
organizing training programs,
publishing in journals aimed at dentists.
These practices are part of an overall strategy aimed at influencing healthcare professionals’ perceptions of nicotine products, particularly those presented as “less harmful” than cigarettes.
We have communicated our deep concern to the editors of Le Monde Dentaire Suisse and requested that clear preventive measures be put in place to avoid this type of problem in the future. To date, we have not received any response from the journal. We have also reported the case to the Swiss Dental Association and the Tobacco Tactics platform.
The complicity of scientific publishers
We would also like to highlight the irresponsibility of certain scientific publishers, such as Springer, publisher of BMC Public Health, who still agree to publish articles from the tobacco industry. Unfortunately, this applies to the majority of scientific journal publishers, even though several of them have decided to no longer accept such studies, including the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, the American Journal of Respiratory Cell and Molecular Biology, the Journal of Health Psychology, PLOS Medicine, PLOS One, PLOS Biology, the British Medical Journal, BMJ Open, Tobacco Control, and the European Journal of Public Health(7-12).
It is high time that scientific and professional journals finally addressed this issue and ceased all collaboration with this manipulative and deadly industry.
If you identify other similar problematic situations, do not hesitate to let us know.
a“Le Monde dentaire suisse” is a professional journal for dentists owned by the Medtrix AG group (as is La Tribune médicale, for example).
b Original title : « Aspects sanitaires liés à l’aide au sevrage tabagique. Produits du tabac à usage oral : un risque réduit de “maladies liées au tabagisme” »
References
1. LMR. Aspects sanitaires liés à l’aide au sevrage tabagique. Produits du tabac à usage oral : un risque réduit de “maladies liées au tabagisme”. Le monde dentaire suisse. 2025;6(Novembre 2025). Available from: https://epaper.zahnzeitung.ch/frontend/getcatalog.do?catalogId=1186163
2. Cheng HG, Noggle B, Flora JW. Comparative disease risks associated with cigarette smoking and use of moist smokeless tobacco and snus: an umbrella review of epidemiological evidence from the United States and Western Europe. BMC Public Health. 2025;25(1):3765. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/41184935.
4. Brandt AM. The Cigarette Century: The Rise, Fall, and Deadly Persistence of the Product That Defined America. New York: Basic Books; 2007.
5. Proctor RN. Golden Holocaust: Origins of th Cigarette Catastrophe and the Case for Abolition. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press; 2011. 738 p.
7. Lanken PN, Osborne ML, Terry PB. Introduction: the ethics of publishing research sponsored by the tobacco industry in ATS/ALA journals. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 1995;151(2 Pt 1):269–70. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1164/ajrccm.151.2.7842174.
8. Leff AR, McDonald JA. Announcement – ATS Policy on Tobacco-funded Research. American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. 1995;152(5). Available from: https://www.industrydocuments.ucsf.edu/docs/rjyd0216.
12. McKee M, Allebeck P. Why the European Journal of Public Health will no longer publish tobacco industry-supported research. The European Journal of Public Health. 2014;24(2):182
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