Mohamad Haniki Nik Mohamed It has been five years since Malaysia last had a tobacco tax increase. The 2021 budget, announced in November 2020, was an opportunity to correct this shortcoming and use one of the most cost-effective measures available to governments to reduce smoking. Instead, tobacco taxes remained static for the sixth year. The […]
Category: Tobacco Industry
Monitoring and Exposing Tobacco Industry Interference in U.S. Public Policy
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 […]
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 […]
China’s e-cigarette manufacturers facing uncertain future
Ross MacKenzie, Jennifer Fang and Julia Smith China’s electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) industry accounts for close to 90% of global production. Based in Shenzhen in Guangdong province, an estimated 3,900 manufacturers employed some 2 million people in 2018 and reported sales of 33.7bn yuan (US$ 4.8bn) and exports worth 28.7bn yuan (US$ 4bn). Figures for […]
The two faces of the tobacco industry during the COVID-19 pandemic
Mateusz Zatoński, Anna B. Gilmore, Thomas R. Hird Since COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 11 March 2020, the world’s major tobacco companies have geared their CSR efforts to present themselves as allies of public health in the fight against the virus. For example, in Georgia on 23-26 March […]
Article 5.3 of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control & the COVID19 Pandemic
Stella Aguinaga Bialous & Becky Freeman Article 5.3 implementation guidelines of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) remind all parties to protect public health against the “commercial or other vested interests” of the tobacco industry. The guidelines recognize a “fundamental and irreconcilable” conflict of interest between tobacco industry ambitions and public health policy […]
COVID-19 and smoking: resources, research and news
This page provides resources, research and news reports about COVID19 and smoking, vaping and other tobacco products for the information of health professionals, researchers and the general public. (Last updated 9 September 2020) Tobacco Control & BMJ publications COVID-19, smoking and inequalities: a study of 53 002 adults in the UK “…current smoking was independently […]
The Philippines: Pioneering the Tobacco Endgame
Kathleen de Leon and Jacky T Sarita In global tobacco control, the Philippines is known as a particularly challenging environment due to long-standing tobacco industry influence. Over 15 years ago, it was termed the “strongest tobacco lobby in Asia”. The 2019 Southeast Asia Tobacco Industry Interference Index ranked the Philippines fifth among nine nations […]
Pakistan: time for stronger enforcement on tobacco control
Musaddique Hussain, Abdul Majeed, Imran Imran, Muhammad Fawad Rasool, Ikhlaq Hussain, Qasim Barkat, Ximei Wu Tobacco use continues to grow in Pakistan due to lack of awareness about its dangers, low prices, aggressive tobacco industry marketing efforts and steady population growth. According to Dr. Abid Saeed Nima, WHO’s acting chief in Pakistan, new estimates show […]