If It's Good for Philip Morris, Can It Also Be Good for Public Health?

If It's Good for Philip Morris, Can It Also Be Good for Public Health?

By JOE NOCERA (NY Times. referred by Maria Inês Reinert Azambuja)

"We don't make widgets," Steve Parrish likes to say, and that acknowledgment strikes me as a good place to start this story. Parrish, whose title is senior vice president for corporate affairs, is a highly paid executive at Altria Group, a New York-based holding company that is the 10th-most-profitable corporation in America. If the name of the company doesn't strike you as terribly familiar, that's because a few years ago the company changed its name. It used to be called Philip Morris, a name that still attaches to two of its holdings, Philip Morris USA and Philip Morris International. (Altria also owns Kraft Foods.) So, yes, let's stipulate right up front: Steve Parrish represents the country's leading tobacco company, whose best-known brand, Marlboro, is so dominant it accounts for 4 out of every 10 cigarettes smoked in the United States. Last year, Philip Morris USA alone made $4.6 billion in profits. What was it that Warren Buffett once said? "You make a product for a penny, you sell it for a dollar and you sell it to addicts." They most certainly don't make widgets./.../