The Great Deception: How Big Tobacco's "Safer" Alternative Is Fueling a New Health Crisis

Wazzup Pilipinas!?

A bombshell investigation reveals heated tobacco products are not the smoking cessation miracle they claim to be—they're the industry's most profitable lie yet.

The promise was seductive: a "reduced risk" alternative to cigarettes that could help millions quit smoking while satisfying their nicotine cravings. The reality, according to explosive new research, is far more sinister—a carefully orchestrated campaign of misinformation that has turned an entire generation into unwitting test subjects for Big Tobacco's latest profit scheme.

The $41.6 Billion Lie

In boardrooms across the globe, tobacco executives are celebrating. Sales of heated tobacco products (HTPs) are skyrocketing, with projections hitting a staggering $41.6 billion by 2025. These sleek, high-tech devices—marketed with clinical precision as "harm reduction" tools—have become the industry's golden goose, promising shareholders massive returns while claiming to serve public health.

But behind the glossy marketing campaigns and carefully crafted scientific studies lies a devastating truth that industry watchdogs are now exposing: there is no credible evidence that these products are safer than cigarettes or help people quit smoking.

The Smoking Gun Evidence

A comprehensive new analysis by STOP, a global tobacco industry watchdog, has torn apart the foundation of heated tobacco product marketing with surgical precision. The findings are damning:

Research shows no health benefits, even among smokers who completely switch to HTPs. Instead of liberation from addiction, users are simply trading one form of harm for another—often while introducing dangerous new risks to non-smokers, particularly vulnerable youth populations.

Toxic emissions remain dangerously high. Some harmful and potentially carcinogenic compounds appear in higher concentrations in HTP smoke than traditional cigarette smoke, shattering the "reduced risk" narrative that has driven sales into the stratosphere.

Environmental devastation follows every puff. The lifecycle of these devices creates harm at every stage—from the mining of toxic elements for their electronic components to the mounting crisis of electronic waste that ends up poisoning communities worldwide.

The Youth Addiction Pipeline

Perhaps most chilling is how these products have become a gateway drug for a new generation. Data reveals that young people and non-smokers are adopting HTPs at alarming rates—far outpacing adoption among older, established smokers who might theoretically benefit from a safer alternative.

The industry's marketing strategy is neither accidental nor subtle. HTPs are "marketed broadly and in ways that appeal to youth, not targeted to adult smokers," the analysis reveals. This isn't harm reduction—it's predatory expansion of nicotine addiction to previously untapped markets.

The Quitting Myth Shattered

The promise that heated tobacco products help people quit smoking has proven to be perhaps the cruelest deception of all. Real-world data paints a starkly different picture: most smokers continue using cigarettes alongside HTPs or simply return to traditional smoking rather than achieving the cessation they desperately seek.

This dual-use pattern doesn't represent progress—it represents the industry's perfect scenario. Instead of losing customers to successful quitting, tobacco companies now have consumers buying multiple products simultaneously, dramatically increasing per-customer revenue while maintaining lifelong addiction.

The Science of Deception

The research supporting heated tobacco products reads like a masterclass in corporate manipulation. Much of the available studies promoting HTPs are industry-linked, with one-third connected to a single company: Philip Morris International. Even the industry's own researchers cast doubt on "smoke-free" marketing claims.

The scale of this scientific corruption is breathtaking. Despite tobacco companies' claims of "transformation," these same companies continue selling an estimated 1.85 trillion traditional cigarettes annually. Philip Morris International, which controls approximately 70% of the global HTP market, actually increased cigarette shipments in 2024.

This isn't transformation—it's expansion. The industry hasn't abandoned its deadly legacy; it has simply found new ways to monetize addiction while maintaining plausible deniability.

Voices from the Front Lines

Dr. Sophie Braznell, co-author of the damning STOP brief and lead researcher on groundbreaking biomarker analysis, pulls no punches in her assessment: "There are three key things policymakers and consumers need to know. First, heated tobacco products cause harmful effects. Second, there is no clear evidence they are safer or less safe than other tobacco and nicotine products, even cigarettes. Third, available research lacks the independence and quality that might help us draw any conclusions about the impacts of real-world use."

Her words carry the weight of scientific authority, but they also convey something more urgent—a warning that "HTP users are paying tobacco companies to be part of a real-time experiment that may just lead to disease and premature death."

Jorge Alday, Director of STOP at Vital Strategies, frames the broader implications with stark clarity: "Looking at all the available evidence, there appears to be no benefit to HTPs beyond helping tobacco companies addict the next generation and boost their profits. Rather than helping to end cigarette sales, they've helped the industry develop a new revenue stream."

The Regulatory Blindspot

Perhaps most troubling is how governments worldwide have been manipulated into providing favorable treatment for these products. The industry has successfully lobbied for lower tax rates and exemptions from smoke-free laws and tobacco advertising bans—regulatory advantages that treat HTPs as fundamentally different from traditional tobacco products despite the absence of credible evidence supporting such distinctions.

This regulatory capture represents a spectacular policy failure, with "governments persuaded by industry misinformation and biased, poor-quality science" potentially facing massive "health, environmental and economic costs in the future."

A Generation Under Siege

The human cost of this deception extends far beyond corporate balance sheets. An entire generation of young people—many who might never have used tobacco products—are now trapped in nicotine addiction, believing they made a "safer" choice based on industry propaganda masquerading as scientific fact.

Meanwhile, smokers seeking genuine paths to cessation are being steered toward products that maintain their addiction while providing false hope of harm reduction. The psychological cruelty of this bait-and-switch cannot be overstated: people desperate to improve their health are being sold continued harm packaged as progress.

The Path Forward

The STOP analysis serves as more than an exposé—it's a call to action for policymakers, public health officials, and consumers worldwide. The evidence is clear: heated tobacco products represent not innovation in harm reduction, but evolution in harm maximization.

As tobacco companies prepare to harvest billions from their latest deception, the question facing society is whether we will allow this predatory expansion of addiction to continue unchecked, or whether we will demand the same regulatory scrutiny and public health protection that should apply to all tobacco products, regardless of their technological sophistication.

The stakes could not be higher. This isn't just about corporate profits or market share—it's about the health and lives of millions of people who trusted that "reduced risk" meant actual safety, that "harm reduction" meant genuine progress toward cessation, and that scientific claims meant scientific truth.

The great deception has been exposed. Now comes the harder work of ensuring it ends before claiming another generation of victims in tobacco's relentless war on public health.

For more information about STOP's research and ongoing efforts to expose tobacco industry tactics, visit exposetobacco.org. The full analysis, "Understanding Heated Tobacco Products: Current Issues and Recent Findings," provides comprehensive documentation of the evidence challenging industry claims about these products.

The Future of Art Awaits: Benilde's P300,000 Grant Could Transform Your Creative Vision

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Where Technology Meets Nature, Dreams Take Flight

In a world increasingly divided between digital innovation and environmental consciousness, one institution is daring to bridge that gap—and they're putting serious money behind their vision. The De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde has just opened the floodgates to creative possibility with their groundbreaking "Benilde Open Design and Art" initiative, offering production grants of up to P300,000 to artists ready to reimagine the future.

This isn't just another arts grant. This is a call to revolution.

When Art Becomes Alchemy

Picture this: kinetic sculptures that respond to wind patterns, digital installations that purify air while creating beauty, or mechanical gardens that bloom in perfect harmony with their surroundings. The theme "Extension of Nature" isn't asking artists to simply paint pretty landscapes—it's challenging them to become architects of tomorrow.

"Imagine a world where art and technology work in harmony with the environment—not against it," the university boldly declares. It's a vision that feels both urgently necessary and thrillingly ambitious, especially as climate anxiety grips our collective consciousness and artists worldwide grapple with their role in shaping a sustainable future.

The Creative Renaissance We've Been Waiting For

What makes this initiative particularly compelling is its timing. As environmental crises mount and technological solutions proliferate, artists find themselves at a unique crossroads. No longer content to merely observe or critique, today's creatives are being called to engineer solutions, to craft beauty that serves purpose, to make art that doesn't just move hearts but moves the needle on humanity's greatest challenges.

Benilde's vision extends far beyond traditional artistic expression. They're seeking "solutions—whether mechanical, organic, or inevitably, the digital—to the reimagination of a future while cognizant of the destruction wrought by the past." This isn't art for art's sake; this is art for survival's sake, art for hope's sake, art for the planet's sake.

The Power of Movement and Response

The emphasis on kinetic art adds another layer of intrigue. We're not talking about static installations gathering dust in galleries. The university is specifically interested in "works that not only move, but also respond, interact, and adapt."

Imagine installations that pulse with the rhythm of ocean tides, sculptures that shift with seasonal changes, or digital environments that evolve based on air quality readings. This is art that lives, breathes, and engages with the world around it—a perfect metaphor for the kind of adaptive thinking our planet desperately needs.

Your Moment Has Arrived

For Filipino artists and creatives, this represents more than funding—it's validation, opportunity, and platform rolled into one transformative package. Up to 10 visionaries will receive these substantial grants, with their work evaluated by an international jury of creative luminaries. That's not just local recognition; that's global artistic citizenship.

The application process, while thorough, is refreshingly straightforward. Submit your project description, concept visuals, budget breakdown, and timeline through their online form. But here's the thing—this isn't about having everything figured out. It's about having the courage to dream big and the conviction to make those dreams tangible.

Beyond the Big Prize

Even current Benilde students aren't left out of this creative gold rush. The separate "Best of Benilde" competition offers five P50,000 grants for school projects that explore "curiosities, spanning sustainability and movement, the intersection of craft and technology, and the exploration of digital or virtual domains."

This dual approach—supporting both established creatives and nurturing emerging talent—speaks to the institution's understanding that innovation happens at every level, that breakthrough ideas can come from seasoned artists or first-year students with nothing to lose and everything to prove.

The Clock Is Ticking

With submissions closing on July 30, potential applicants have roughly two months to crystallize their visions and craft their proposals. That might seem like a lot of time, but for projects of this scope and ambition, every day counts.

Why This Matters Now

In an era where many question art's relevance amid pressing global challenges, Benilde's initiative offers a powerful counter-narrative. It suggests that art isn't luxury or distraction—it's essential infrastructure for imagining and building better futures. It's research and development for the soul of society.

The "Extension of Nature" theme arrives at a moment when the Philippines, like much of the world, faces unprecedented environmental challenges. Rising sea levels, extreme weather events, and ecological disruption demand creative responses as much as they do policy solutions. Artists have always been society's early warning system and its vision keepers. Now they're being asked to be its engineers of hope.

The Ripple Effect

The true impact of this initiative will likely extend far beyond the funded projects themselves. By prioritizing environmentally conscious, technologically integrated art, Benilde is helping to establish new standards for contemporary practice. They're suggesting that tomorrow's relevant art won't just reflect the world—it will actively work to heal it.

For a generation of artists who've grown up with climate anxiety as background noise, this represents permission to channel that concern into creation, to transform worry into wonder, to make despair productive.

Your Vision, Amplified

Whether you're an established artist with years of unrealized concepts or an emerging creative with wild ideas and boundless energy, this grant represents something precious: the chance to fail spectacularly or succeed magnificently, but either way, to try authentically.

P300,000 can buy a lot of materials, a lot of technology, a lot of time to experiment and iterate. But more importantly, it buys permission—permission to think big, to risk boldly, to create without the constant pressure of commercial viability or immediate market acceptance.

The future of art is being written right now, in proposal forms and concept sketches, in workshops and studios across the Philippines. The question isn't whether you're ready for this opportunity—it's whether you're brave enough to seize it.

The deadline is July 30. The future is waiting.

Your move.

From Street Stalls to Sustainable Success: A Revolutionary Partnership Transforms the Philippines' Food Entrepreneurship Landscape

Wazzup Pilipinas!?

In a boardroom overlooking Manila's bustling streets, five visionaries gathered around a conference table to sign an agreement that would forever change the trajectory of Filipino food entrepreneurship. The scene was simple—documents, handshakes, and smiles—but the implications were revolutionary.

The Hunger for Change

The statistics tell a sobering story: over 99.5 percent of businesses in the Philippines are micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs), with a staggering number concentrated in the food industry. These entrepreneurs—from the sari-sari store owners to the ambitious street food vendors dreaming of their own restaurants—have long faced an insurmountable challenge: how to transform their passion for food into sustainable, growth-oriented businesses.

For decades, these aspiring culinary entrepreneurs have operated in the shadows of the formal economy, armed with little more than family recipes and relentless determination. They've lacked access to the sophisticated business knowledge that separates a thriving enterprise from a struggling venture—knowledge of food business management, marketing strategies that actually work, financial literacy that goes beyond daily cash flow, and the kind of culinary innovation that captures modern consumers' hearts.

A Partnership Born from Purpose

Enter two institutions that recognized this critical gap: De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde and Mercato Centrale Philippines, the nation's premier food market hub. Their partnership, formalized through a memorandum of understanding signed on May 26, represents more than just an academic collaboration—it's a lifeline thrown to thousands of food entrepreneurs who have been waiting for their chance to transform passion into prosperity.

"Our mission has always been to champion local food entrepreneurs by providing them with the right platform and support," declared RJ Ledesma, the visionary behind Mercato Centrale. "Through this partnership with CSB, we're taking that commitment further by giving MSMEs access to quality education and training—tools that can help them sustain and grow their businesses."

The partnership brings together CSB's School of Hotel, Restaurant and Institution Management (Shrim) and Mercato's entrepreneurship platform in what industry experts are already calling a game-changing initiative.

Beyond the Classroom: Real-World Transformation

This isn't your typical academic program filled with theoretical frameworks and abstract concepts. The micro-certification courses are designed as practical boot camps that will equip both aspiring and existing food entrepreneurs with immediately applicable skills. Students won't just learn about food business management—they'll understand how to manage cash flow during peak and slow seasons. They won't just study marketing strategies—they'll discover how to build a brand that resonates with Filipino consumers while standing out in an increasingly crowded marketplace.

The curriculum extends far beyond business fundamentals. Financial literacy components will teach entrepreneurs how to make their money work for them, while culinary innovation modules will help them stay ahead of evolving food trends. Perhaps most importantly, the program recognizes that successful food entrepreneurship requires understanding both the art of cooking and the science of business.

Immersion in Excellence

The partnership's crown jewel lies in its immersive approach. Students will gain hands-on experience within CSB's state-of-the-art hospitality and entrepreneurship programs, working alongside industry professionals in real business environments. But the learning doesn't stop there—immersion and exposure trips will provide deeper insights into industry practices, allowing participants to witness firsthand how successful food businesses operate.

"With what we've built at Mercato, we have a real opportunity to contribute to making these businesses more sustainable," explained Vanessa Pastor Ledesma, Mercato Central PH president, whose passion for supporting local entrepreneurs has made Mercato Centrale a launching pad for countless success stories. "This initiative also reflects our mission of service."

Ripple Effects Across the Industry

The program's impact extends far beyond individual entrepreneurs. Data analytics workshops and seminars will benefit students, faculty, and the broader public, creating a more sophisticated understanding of market trends and consumer behavior throughout the food industry. Faculty and associates from both institutions will participate in these learning opportunities, ensuring that knowledge flows in multiple directions.

The partnership is strategically designed to align academic offerings with the operational needs of the food and hospitality sector, creating a feedback loop that keeps education relevant and immediately applicable to real-world challenges.

A Vision Taking Shape

As the program prepares to launch in the coming months, anticipation builds among home-based food vendors, market stall owners, and individuals entering the food industry. This isn't just about creating more food businesses—it's about elevating the entire ecosystem of Filipino food entrepreneurship.

The timing couldn't be more critical. As the Philippines continues to establish itself as a culinary destination in Southeast Asia, the need for professionally trained, business-savvy food entrepreneurs has never been greater. This partnership between Benilde and Mercato Centrale represents a recognition that the future of Filipino food culture depends not just on preserving traditional flavors, but on empowering the next generation of culinary entrepreneurs with the tools they need to succeed in an increasingly competitive global marketplace.

The Signing That Changed Everything

That moment in the boardroom—captured in a single photograph of five determined leaders around a conference table—represents more than just institutional cooperation. It symbolizes a commitment to transforming how the Philippines nurtures its food entrepreneurs, moving from a culture of survival to one of strategic growth and sustainable success.

From left to right in that historic photograph sat the architects of this transformation: Angelo Marco Lacson, CSB vice chancellor for academics; Vanessa Pastor Ledesma, Mercato Central PH president; Benhur Ong, CSB chancellor; RJ Ledesma, Mercato Centrale CEO; and Marie Paz Castro, Shrim dean—five individuals whose collective vision is about to unleash the potential of thousands of Filipino food entrepreneurs.

The revolution in Filipino food entrepreneurship doesn't start with a dramatic announcement or a grand opening. It starts with education, opportunity, and the recognition that every successful food business begins with someone who dared to dream bigger than their current circumstances.

That dream is now within reach for countless Filipino food entrepreneurs, thanks to a partnership that proves sometimes the most powerful changes begin with the simplest of ceremonies—five people, one table, and an unwavering commitment to transformation.