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 […]

Read More…

Chevrons, barcodes and arrows: PMI’s continued subliminal promotion of combustible products

John Baker and Pascal Diethelm Philip Morris International (PMI) has both actively and subliminally advertised its Marlboro brand in F1 since the 1970’s. Several host countries gradually implemented advertising bans, however at many of these venues, Marlboro-backed teams and drivers raced with chevrons, and chevron-themed track signage was also visible. At other venues, teams used a […]

Read More…

Taking the E-asy path: E-cigarettes not the only option to address tobacco harms

May C.I. van Schalkwyk Department of Primary Care and Public Health, Imperial College London. m.van-schalkwyk@imperial.ac.uk There has, and continues to be, much debate about the stance taken by some organisations in the United Kingdom (UK) on the role of e-cigarettes in the battle to avert the unparalleled harm caused by the consumption of tobacco products. […]

Read More…

How should governments deal with multinational consulting firms that work for the tobacco industry?

  George Thomson, Louise Delany Department of Public Health, University of Otago, Wellington, New Zealand george.thomson@otago.ac.nz The New Zealand Ministry of Health is currently using a consulting firm EY (formerly Ernst & Young) to research the impacts of tobacco taxation, despite EY’s work locally and internationally for tobacco companies. This decision may breach the Framework […]

Read More…

Ensuring a transparent, inclusive, civilian and scientific-oriented World Tobacco Control Conference – statement from Taiwanese delegates

Editors note: The joint statement below is from delegates from Taiwan who were excluded from the 17th World Conference on Tobacco or Health, held in Cape Town, South Africa from 7-9 March. Comment was sought from the conference secretariat; the full list of questions put to them, and their response, are at the end of […]

Read More…

Reports, interviews and photos from #WCTOH2018 Uniting the World for a Smoke Free Generation

The 17th World Conference on Tobacco or Health was held in Cape Town, South Africa from 7-9 March 2018. It was a landmark event in tobacco control; the first time the conference has been held on the African continent – where the tobacco industry is aggressively expanding new markets – and the first to have […]

Read More…

The world of predatory publishing: what is it, and what might it mean for tobacco control?

  Raymond Boyle ClearWay Minnesota If your email inbox is anything like mine, you receive a near constant stream of requests to send a manuscript to the next new journal. Most researchers are familiar with this type of academic spam: the journal name might sound familiar, but these requests usually appear as a generic template. […]

Read More…