Nick Naylor is a handsome, smooth-talking tobacco lobbying and the vice-president of a tobacco politics called the "Academy of Tobacco Studies", which for 15 years has been "researching" the link between tobacco smoking and lung cancer. They claim that their research—funded primarily by tobacco companies—has found no definitive evidence of any linkage. Naylor's job consists mainly of reporting the questionable research of the "Academy" to the public and defending Big Tobacco on television programs by questioning opposing health claims and advocating personal choice. Naylor and his friends, firearm lobbyist Bobby Jay Bliss and alcohol lobbyist Polly Bailey, meet every week and jokingly call themselves the "Merchants of Death" or "The MOD Squad".