Companies use advantageous comparison to frame their hazards as negligible next to everyday risks

Evidence

Advantageous comparison was also used to play down the health risk of secondhand smoke. In a strategy document, executives at Philip Morris recommended that the company “[i]dentify a strategy in risk assessment methodology that allows comparison of ETS [environmental tobacco smoke] to other indoor air (volatile organic chemicals), foods (pesticides), and water (lead, fluorine). Design a communications package that illustrates the significant risks associated with everyday life that includes ETS as a ‘negligible risk’” (Philip Morris USA, 1989). — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1650

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the Milgrom law-merchant chapters and the broader theme of how institutions/agents manage reputation to avoid regulation.
• SEED: Angle for an essay on how industries weaponize risk-communication framing to drown specific harms in a sea of ambient ones.