Salmon said a series of defamatory blog posts on Whale Oil came about because of payments from the FGC and British American Tobacco. Salmon said money was paid to Graham, who wrote some of the blog posts Slater published under his own name. The book, said Salmon, was the first the public health experts became aware of Graham, Rich and the FGC's involvement. He said evidence showed Graham's company, FCL, had paid Slater $124,430 between October 2012 and May 2016. "I hope that uncovering these connections between big money, underhand PR and defamatory blogs is a wake-up call and we can begin to see better public health policies from Government."

Source: New Zealand Herald March 03, 2021 02:25 UTC