Manipulating data to diminish drugs harm

By  Simon Mwangi

Deputy Director, Corporate Communications

Nacada

Data is supposed to settle arguments. It tells us what is happening, how serious a problem is, who is affected and, importantly, what governments should do about it. But what happens when data itself becomes part of the problem? For decades, tobacco companies did not necessarily need to prove that smoking was safe.

They only needed to create enough uncertainty for people to believe that the science was still unsettled. When evidence cannot be defeated, confusing the public about the evidence can be almost as effective.

In Kenya, the push to pass the Tobacco Control (Amendment) Bill has sparked intense public and political conflict.

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The Bill’s primary aim is to close loopholes in the original 2007 Act by introducing stringent restrictions on modern non-traditional products, including a ban on most flavours, limits on nicotine concentrations and strict bans on digital marketing to protect young people.

Investigations of previously confidential tobacco-industry documents found that companies cultivated networks of sympathetic scientists, funded organisations that appeared independent, promoted non-peer-reviewed research and suppressed unfavourable findings.

Internal documents also showed that the industry knew nicotine was addictive while publicly resisting that conclusion. The lesson: data can be manipulated. Researchers can be selected because they produce favourable results. An inconvenient finding can be excluded.

And perhaps most deceptively, uncertainty can be exaggerated until the public concludes that “we simply do not know”.

To terrify policymakers into killing the flavour bans and nicotine restrictions, industry-backed campaigns have flooded Kenyan mainstream media and parliamentary submissions with a highly specific statistic: that an illicit black market already accounts for 45–50 per cent of Kenya’s tobacco market. Why does this matter? Because the objective is not always to deny harm directly.

Sometimes the objective is to make regulation appear harmful. If an industry can persuade policymakers that taxation will cause an enormous explosion in illicit trade, for example, the debate shifts from “How do we protect health?” to “Can we afford to regulate?”

Kenya provides an important reminder: we should never confuse an industry’s data with independent evidence simply because the numbers are presented in a professional report. Governments, researchers and the media should ask simple but uncomfortable questions: Who funded the study? What data were excluded? Can the methodology be independently replicated? Were alternative findings considered? Does the conclusion actually follow from the evidence?

The tobacco experience teaches us that misinformation does not always look like a lie. Sometimes it looks like a sophisticated spreadsheet, a respectable expert, a carefully selected statistic or a legitimate-sounding report.

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Mr Mwangi is Deputy Director, Corporate Communications, at Nacada. simonmwangi@nacada.go.ke.