
Joop Bouma, Netherlands, is an editor and reporter for the Dutch daily newspaper Trouw, where he has covered environmental and criminal beats and has also served as national editor.
, Netherlands
Previously, Bouma was a crime reporter and national news editor at various daily newspapers in the eastern and northern parts of the Netherlands. Bouma is the author of The Smokescreen: The Power of the Dutch Tobacco Industry, which examines influence-peddling in the government and media by cigarette companies, as well as behind-the-scenes deals surrounding the tobacco industry in the Netherlands, the largest cigarette exporter in the European Union. In the book, the culmination of years of reporting, Bouma reveals that a former Dutch prime minister and finance minister were regular visitors to a Philip Morris lobbying group in New York. Despite denials by the former politicians, Trouw was able to secure, through the Dutch freedom of information act, corroborating evidence about the meetings. In 2001, Bouma wrote a series of reports investigating the growing influence of the pharmaceutical industry on doctors in the Netherlands. He is now working on a book about the way Big Pharma is marketing drugs.
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