Nichelle Gray, Kathleen Hoke and Doug Matheny As the United States and the world grapples with the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important to recognize underlying issues that still drastically impair public health. Tobacco use remains the leading cause of disease and early death in the U.S., accounting for 480,000 deaths annually, including 41,000 from secondhand […]
Category: Advocacy
Spain: Civil Rights and Public Health Organizations Press Government for a Tobacco Endgame by 2030
Laurent Huber, Ubaldo Cuadrado García de Arboleya, Raquel Fernández Megina and Leonardo Visconti More than twenty civil rights associations and public health organizations in Spain have backed a Declaration asking the Spanish Government for a Tobacco Endgame by 2030. The goal is ambitious: to decrease smoking prevalence in Spain to under 5% by 2030. The […]
Tobacco industry lobbies Bangladesh Government Agency to champion its business during COVID-19 pandemic
ABM Zubair Bangladesh has seen an unprecedented level of tobacco industry interference during the COVID-19 crisis. The tobacco industry in Bangladesh, dominated by two transnational tobacco companies, British American Tobacco Bangladesh (BATB) and Japan Tobacco International (JTI), has exploited the ongoing pandemic to protect its cigarette business. While publicly building their image by making donations […]
Foundation for a Smoke Free World is not complementary to public health efforts – it’s undermining them
Heather Lusardi, Anna Gilmore, Ulysses Dorotheo The Foundation for a Smoke-Free World (FSFW), established with almost US $1 billion from Philip Morris International, is essentially operating as a front group for Philip Morris International’s (PMI) interests. Unsurprisingly, therefore, overtures to the public health community have been repeatedly, firmly and publicly rejected: WHO has made clear […]
World: International Labour Organization (ILO) ends tobacco industry funding
Alice Grainger Gasser, corresponding author. Contributing authors: Leonce Dieudonné Sessou, Fastone Goma, Lutgard Kokulinda Kagaruki, Marty Otanez, Hellen Neima At the end of October, the Governing Body of the International Labour Organization (ILO) endorsed its new integrated strategy for the tobacco sector. The decision ends ILO’s involvement in over a decade of tobacco industry corporate […]
The Kuala Lumpur Charter on Smoke-Free Homes
Semple S1 Ph.D., Abidin E2 Ph.D., Amos A3 Ph.D., Hashim Z2, Siddiqi K4 MBBS, Ismail N5 Ph.D., on behalf of the participants of the Smoke-Free Homes Workshop (Kuala Lumpur, 7-9 May 2018)* For more information see @SFHWorkshopKL In accordance with article 8 of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, governments, health practitioners and wider society […]
Ending child labour in tobacco production by 2025: the tobacco industry is the problem, not part of the solution
Mary Assunta Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (SEATCA) Related: more than 100 organisations call on ILO not to renew tobacco industry contracts Today is World Day Against Child Labour and this article is dedicated to the millions of children trapped in child labour. It is a reminder that in the 21st century we have failed […]
#QuitBigTobacco: saying no to helping the tobacco industry’s dirty work
A campaign launched at the World Conference on Tobacco or Health in Cape Town, South Africa in March, is aimed at separating the tobacco industry from the vendors that make their dirty work possible, especially advertising agencies. Quit Big Tobacco is an initiative of Vital Strategies. It is calling on non-profit organizations with health in their […]
Austria: government chooses tobacco industry interests over citizens’ health
German version (click here) Austria achieved a dismal milestone in March 2018, when its government overturned modest (and long overdue) legislation for smoke free hospitality venues. The new laws had been due to come into force in May 2018. Among high income countries, Austria already stood as a grim example of woefully inadequate tobacco control. […]
A New Front – and a New Ally – in the Tobacco Wars
Submitted by: Human Rights and Tobacco Control Network, Action on Smoking and Health (US) and Unfairtobacco The 17th World Conference on Tobacco or Health concluded in South Africa on March 9th by adopting the Cape Town Declaration on Human Rights and a Tobacco-Free World. The Declaration, proposed by the Human Rights and Tobacco Control Network, […]