Senior doctors across the UK have called for healthcare organisations to sever all links with PR companies lobbying on behalf of the tobacco industry.

Dr Nicholas Hopkinson, Senior Lecturer in Respiratory Medicine at Imperial College London, is chief signatory to the letter published today in The Lancet. He and his colleagues note that organisations such as the Department of Health, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, and St George's Healthcare NHS Trust have all employed lobbying agencies also used by the tobacco industry.

The letter calls on all health-care organisations to send out a clear message by severing any links they have with public relations companies that work to promote the interests of the tobacco industry. Dr Hopkinson and his co-signatories hope that by bringing this issue into the open the reputational cost of working with tobacco will become too high.