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 […]
Category: Tobacco Industry
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 […]
World: PMI in global motorsport smoke-free PR spin
John Baker Mission Winnow (MW) is a PMI campaign claiming to focus on “…innovation and technology to expedite change” through sponsorship of the Ferrari Formula One (F1) team, the Pramac MotoE team and the Ducati MotoGP team. Ducati launched its 2019 bikes at PMI’s Cube building, with PMI’s Miroslaw Zielinski and the MW logo designer, […]
China: CTI’s quiet expansion strategy should be a concern for global public health
Ross MacKenzie, Jennifer Fang, Julia Smith In July this year, China Tobacco International (CTI) Hong Kong, the international arm of the China National Tobacco Corporation (CNTC), launched into the stock market with an initial public offering (IPO). Outside of the financial media, the IPO attracted relatively little attention. However, the offering has implications far beyond […]
World: Gandhi’s legacy and a Tobacco-Free World
From Indian public health researchers Amit Yadav and Prashant Kumar Singh, a call to action for world leaders to take action at the UN General Assembly on the eve of Gandhi’s 150th birthday. “A correspondent who is interested in a variety of reforms asks what the nation pays for her tobacco bill. I find that […]
World: PMI-funded Foundation for a Smoke-Free World adding insult to injury
Jennifer Fang and Kelley Lee Despite 7 million deaths annually and counting, tobacco control worldwide continues to be seriously underfunded as a public health priority. This funding gap is especially acute in low-income countries and among certain historically disadvantaged populations. It is into this space that the Philip Morris International (PMI) financed Foundation for a […]
USA: Setting the Sun on Big Tobacco
Megan Arendt, ASH USA The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) held their National Conference on Tobacco or Health (NCTOH) in Minneapolis, MN from August 27 – 29, 2019. It was an exciting week for public health experts, advocates, researchers, and policymakers to network and learn from each other, in turn strengthening public health policies […]
China: Tobacco and Belt and Road Initiative – the new ‘Go Global’?
Jennifer Fang China National Tobacco Company (CNTC) is the world’s largest manufacturer of cigarettes, accounting for a third of the total global output. The powerful state-owned tobacco monopoly, previously focused on the vast domestic market with 350 million smokers, has been nurturing growing global ambitions since the early 2000s. Faced by an increasingly saturated domestic […]
Euromonitor International now accepts tobacco industry funding: a win for PMI at the expense of research on the tobacco industry
Allen W A Gallagher and Anna B Gilmore On the 18th and 19th March 2019, respectively, the market research organisation Euromonitor International, which describes itself as “the world’s leading independent provider of strategic market research”, became the recipient of funding from not one, but two initiatives solely-funded by Philip Morris International (PMI)- the Foundation […]
The 2020 Tokyo Olympic & Paralympic Games: time for Japan to showcase smokefree hospitality
Authors: Shuhei Nomura and Haruka Sakamoto with Yusuke Tsugawa, Naoko Iwanaga, Seiichiro Kuchiki, Ichiro Kawachi, Kenji Shibuya Despite its outstanding health record in other areas, Japan is a global laggard in tobacco control, and does not meet standards set by the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), particularly for smoke-free public spaces. The […]