On April 7 this year, a 29 year old man died unnecessarily. Not due to smoking cigarettes, but from consuming alcohol shots at an illegal event sponsored by Phillip Morris Fortune Tobacco Company in The Philippines. His sister Catherine Maralit has started an online petition to bring those responsible to account.

She writes:

“Last April 7, my brother died at an event illegally sponsored by Phillip Morris Tobacco Corporation. He was 29 years old.

The game Phillip Morris played with my brother’s life was this: they encouraged people to drink as many liquor shots as possible in 100 seconds. There was no medic on standby.

A police investigation into my brother’s death says that it “was caused by lapses and negligence in the party of the organisers as evident in the aftermath of the event”. Yet the people responsible for his death are still employed, no criminal charges have been laid, and Philip Morris continue to engage in illegal promotional activities.

I miss my brother every day. His widow will give birth to their first baby in a few months time, and I can’t believe that he won’t be there with us to celebrate.”

Read more here. To sign Catherine’s petition click here.

By Ruth Malone, Editor

When the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control was being negotiated several years back, I was among many others around the world who were impressed with the unanimity and power exerted by the African countries’ delegates. It is not an exaggeration to say that it is in many respects because of strong advocacy from African countries that we have as strong a global treaty to work with. For that reason, I was excited to meet with African tobacco control advocates, researchers and policymakers from 14 African countries whom I met in Johannesburg, South Africa recently for a Tobacco Control journal-sponsored publishing workshop (see photo). These are individuals who are doing incredible work, often with very limited resources and often at some personal risk due to government corruption and/or industry influence. Editorial board member Stella Aguinaga Bialous and I travelled to Johannesburg to hear about the work underway across the continent. We brainstormed with the group about their ideas for articles and discussed the requirements for submitting papers, the mentorship program for promising papers offered by the journal under Bloomberg sponsorship, and the global interest in the activities taking place on the African continent. We are looking forward to publishing more great research and advocacy work from African countries!

Workshop participants

Ruth Malone, Editor in Chief

Indonesia is one of the world’s most difficult places to do tobacco control, with a strong tobacco industry presence and a lot of political resistance from tobacco growers and their allies. Huge tobacco billboards are everywhere in the city of Jakarta. Yet, as we discovered on a recent visit, tobacco control advocates and researchers there are doing great work of global importance.

Commissioning editor for Low and Middle Income Countries Simon Chapman and I conducted a workshop in Jakarta aimed at encouraging more publications from low and middle income countries and enthusiasm ran high. Hosted by the Faculty of Public Health at University of Jakarta and coordinated by Mary Assunta, Director, International Tobacco Control Project, Cancer Council Australia, the workshop focused on bringing great ideas to fruition as journal articles, so that lessons learned in Indonesia can help other countries faced with similar political challenges.

The Indonesian workshop participants.