AWARD WINNERS USED TOBACCO INDUSTRY DOCUMENTS TO EDUCATE AMERICANS ON TOBACCO INDUSTRY STRATEGIES AND TACTICS Academics from Harvard University and the University of California, Davis, and a student youth activist from New Hampshire are being lauded for their work using documents from the tobacco industry to tell the story behind Big Tobacco's practices and the issue of tobacco use in our country. Dr. Allan Brandt, Dr. Elisa Tong, and Kaitlyn Reilly are the recipients of the American Legacy Foundation's 4th annual Legacy Tobacco Industry Documents Awards. On October 25 in Minneapolis, as part of the National Conference on Tobacco or Health, the foundation honored Brandt, Tong, and Reilly for their use of tobacco industry documents to educate the public about tactics that tobacco companies have employed to attract and addict smokers to tobacco products. Legacy is dedicated to providing resources for tobacco control research. A grant to the University of California, San Francisco, created the Legacy Tobacco Documents Library — providing permanent Internet access to millions of once-secret tobacco industry documents. Each year the foundation honors those who make positive and innovative use of the documents at Legacy's Tobacco Industry Documents Awards. "For those of us working in public health, tobacco industry documents made public by the MSA have proven to be an invaluable resource for learning more about the tobacco industry's thinking and tactics in developing and promoting their deadly and addictive products," said Dr. Cheryl Healton, President & CEO of the American Legacy Foundation. Dr. Stanton Glantz, holder of the American Legacy Foundation Distinguished Professorship in Tobacco Control at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF), was himself honored, and he also announced the winner of the first International Tobacco Industry Document Award, presented by Public Health Advocacy International and the UCSF Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education. The foundation presented the Sybil G. Jacobs Adult Award for Outstanding Use of Tobacco Industry Documents to two individuals: Dr. Allan Brandt and Dr. Elisa Tong. The award honors Sybil Jacobs, the late mother of Washington State Governor Christine Gregoire. Governor Gregoire was the first Board Chair of the American Legacy Foundation; her mother died of a tobacco-related disease. Dr. Allan Brandt holds the Amalie Moses Kass Professorship of the History of Medicine at the Harvard Medical School and is Chair of the Department of History of Science at Harvard University. He also holds a joint appointment between the medical school and the faculty of arts and sciences. His recent book The Cigarette Century, focused exclusively on studies using the tobacco industry documents. In his book, Dr. Brandt illustrates the techniques used by Big Tobacco to confuse consumers about the health implications of smoking. The second Sybil G. Jacobs Adult Award was presented to Dr. Elisa Tong, an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of California, Davis, who is based at the university's academic medical center campus in Sacramento. Tong's work with the documents began before the Legacy Tobacco Documents Library was established and has continued since. Her paper published in The Lancet focusing on tobacco industry efforts to subvert the International Agency for Research on Cancer's secondhand smoke study has been recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO) — a move that led WHO to strengthen its conflict of interest rules when dealing with the tobacco industry. Her later work has been influential beyond tobacco control, influencing the environmental and public policy areas. The Christine O. Gregoire Youth/Young Adult Award for Outstanding Use of Tobacco Industry Documents was presented to Kaitlyn Reilly, a student at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. As a senior at The St. Thomas Aquinas High School in 2006, Kaitlyn led a group of peers during a New Hampshire House Finance Committee meeting in urging lawmakers to use money raised by illegal cigarette sales to minors to help pay for tobacco prevention programs. Earlier, Kaitlyn's public testimony helped convince the Dover City Council in Dover, New Hampshire, to unanimously adopt her ordinance to make a local skate park smoke-free. She has been an active member for more than seven years of Dover Youth to Youth, which works to reduce youth tobacco and drug use, as well as a co-founder of Ignite New Hampshire, a statewide anti-tobacco youth organization. For the first time this year, an international award was also given out for innovative use of tobacco industry documents. The Public Health Advocacy International and the University of California, San Francisco Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education presented the International Tobacco Industry Documents Award to Pascal Diethelm, a researcher from Geneva, Switzerland, who spent 30 years with the World Health Organization.