Gregory Connolly

"Tobacco companies were dealt a blow by the Master Settlement Agreement, but it wasn’t a death blow," said Connolly, who came to HSPH last year as an instructor at the Division of Public Health Practice. "Now, they are smarter in their marketing and advertising strategies." A former director of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health’s Tobacco Control Program, Connolly spearheaded the "Make Smoking History" campaign for 17 years, overseeing the fastest decline in smoking in any state.

The Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) of 1998 was the largest civil settlement in history and severely limited the tobacco industry’s advertising, marketing, and lobbying activities. The agreement required tobacco companies to pay states more than $200 billion through 2025. MSA architects were honored last October with the Julius B. Richmond Award, the highest honor conferred by HSPH. See http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/now/nov12/richmond.html.

Yet, as the MSA architects and Connolly know, the agreement did not end tobacco sales, and Connolly has become a persistent watchdog over Big Tobacco’s latest marketing strategies, product ingredients, and advertising claims. A firm believer in collaboration, Connolly has recruited a team of analysts for the Tobacco Control Research and Training Program at the Division of Public Health Practice. Working with more than $4 million in grants for the next three-and-a-half years, Connolly and his team of Hillel Alpert, Carrie Carpenter, Geoff Wayne, and Vaughan Rees have undertaken three primary, large-scale projects.

Funded by the American Legacy Foundation, one project monitors the design and marketing of so-called harm-reduction tobacco products, such as cigarettes that claim to have low toxins. As part of the work, Connolly and his team buy tobacco products to see if the products’ claims match independent lab analyses. When a cigarette brand was unveiled in 2001 as a cigarette unlike any other that may pose a reduced risk of lung cancer, Connolly bought two other brands of ultralight cigarettes and sent them out for independent testing. The results showed that the other brands had lower carcinogenic smoke chemistry, he said, and he filed complaints with the Federal Trade Commission and the Food and Drug Administration.

A current focus of the project is a call for tobacco companies to sell only cigarettes that are less likely to smolder and ignite fires. New York State passed a law requiring such a design for cigarettes sold within its boundaries, and Connolly doesn’t see why the same safety measures can’t be undertaken across the country. For more information, see a copy of the report at http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/press/releases/press01232005.html.

Another project, funded by the National Cancer Institute, examines the design of tobacco products and how they may affect different groups of smokers, and even non-smokers through second-hand exposure. For example, one of Connolly’s analysts uncovered a device sandwiched in the filter of a cigarette brand that injected a flavor of berries to the smoke. Visually hidden, the device was discovered only after Connolly’s team found references to it in tobacco company documents made available through the MSA.

A third project investigates the impact that smoking bans have had on the economy and health of hospitality workers. Funded by the Flight Attendants Medical Research Institute, the project just issued a preliminary report asserting that sales and employment at Massachusetts restaurants and bars increased during the first six months of a statewide smoking ban started last July, contrary to what critics of the ban predicted. The report is available at http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/php/pri/tcrtp/home.html.

Whenever he can, Connolly involves students in his work with the Tobacco Control Research and Training Program. An alumnus, Connolly (MPH ’78) created the first course in the country on tobacco control in 1990 at HSPH, when he worked here part-time. Since returning last year, he has taught a course on international tobacco control and teaches a course on how to manage a mass media campaign based on his experiences overseeing the multimillion-dollar Massachusetts Tobacco Control media program. He hopes to conduct a future course on tackling legal and political issues related to tobacco control.

Connolly has served as an advisor to the World Health Organization and has helped train public health officials in Asia and Eastern Europe. Over the past few years, he has worked with the Ministry of Health in Ireland to ban smokeless tobacco, advertising, and smoking in public places. In the U.S., Connolly has testified before Congress more than a dozen times. He received the U.S. Surgeon General’s Medallion from then-Surgeon General C. Everett Koop and advised the Clinton White House.

"Dr. Connolly is a fearless and tireless public health pioneer," said Howard Koh, Harvey V. Fineberg Professor of the Practice of Public Health at HSPH, who has known Connolly from when they both were at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. "His passion and commitment have saved lives around the world."