I do not receive any tobacco-industry funded speaker fees for conference engagements. 

However, due to the huge costs involved in travelling from Australia to overseas conferences, and not having research institution funding (or similar), it has been necessary on occasion to have travel costs covered in part by tobacco industry. Note that any such arrangements have been completely unconditional, and have never influenced my clinical decisions.

As a sole business owner, I have had to make up my own mind about which sources of travel funding to accept, and the decision is never made lightly. All overseas conference engagements incur significant costs in the form of lost income plus expenses. I am fully aware that being tarred with the brush of ‘tobacco industry funding’ is tantamount these days to reputational kamakaze. I respectfully suggest we reconsider such issues, with a broader consideration of what is in the best interests of the real issue – reducing Australia’s 20,000 smoking-related annual deaths. Since 2020 I have devoted all my available time to this issue, and on the balance of evidence I support tobacco harm reduction and the role of vaping for adult smokers. Reducing youth uptake and removing the blackmarket are also foremost in my aims. Occasional unconditional tobacco-industry funded travel costs are required to achieve these aims, in the absence of alternative sources of funding.

I have never sought to hide this, and the following is a list of relevant engagements that required travel funding. Note that where possible I receive such funding from non-tobacco industry sources, and I emphasise that all travel funding is unconditional:

2022:

Toronto, speaker at the Less Harmful Coalition: travel expenses provided by them.

Switzerland, attendance at ‘The Cube’ open day, the Philip Morris research facility. Followed by the UK e-cig summit. Travel expenses provided by PMI.

2023:

Warsaw, speaker at the Global Forum on Nicotine (GFN). Travel expenses provided via KAC (Knowledge-Action-Change) as part of a scholarship.  

Seoul, speaker at the Global Tobacco and Nicotine Forum (GTNF). Travel expenses provided by GTNF.