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ASH Thailand says e-cigarette is harmful to health

Sep 20th, 2017
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The Action on Smoking and Health Foundation or ASH Thailand insists electronic cigarettes or e-cigarettes is harmful to health.

http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/ash-thailand-says-e-cigarette-harmful-health/

Warning of the danger of e-cigarettes came from ASH Thailand executive secretary Professor Dr Prakit Vathesatogkit as advocates to vaping claim it is safe to health.

One strong advocate to electronic cigarettes is Mr Maris Karunyawat after he posted on his Facebook page informing the benefit of e-cigarettes and encouraging tobacco smokers to e-cigarettes citing laboratory tests by scientists that e-cigarettes is 95% safer than tobacco cigarettes.

But Dr Prakit rebuffed the claim saying the tests claimed by the e-cigarette advocate was untrue and was not accepted by scientists, particularly in the United States.

He said although vaping does not create smokes like tobacco smoking, but e-cigarette vapour is harmful to lung and blood vessel tissues.

In addition, scientists also found that those vaping e-cigarettes have tendency to turn to conventional smoking.

Meanwhile the Department of Disease Control also affirmed that e-cigarette is harmful to health.

It said e-cigarette vapour contains more than 250 harmful chemicals, 70 of which can cause cancer.

It went on saying that a claim by e-cigarette advocates that vaping is more safer than tobacco smoking, is just an assessment from experts with no exact certified source.

Instead the department said some of these experts were funded to conduct research by producers of e-cigarettes.

Latest survey in 2015 showed that 4.7% of Thai male teenagers from 13-17 years-old chose to vaping while vaping among female teenagers was 1.9%, and the trend is growing.

WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control Secretariat’s statement on the launch of the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World

Sep 19th, 2017
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The WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control Secretariat (Convention Secretariat) notes the launch of the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World, led by a former official of the World Health Organization.

http://www.who.int/fctc/mediacentre/statement/secretariat-statement-launch-foundation-for-a-smoke-free-world/en/

The Convention Secretariat regards this tobacco industry-funded initiative as a clear attempt to breach the WHO FCTC by interfering in public policy. It is a deeply alarming development aimed at damaging the treaty’s implementation, particularly through the Foundation’s contentious research programmes.

The WHO FCTC is the world’s only tobacco control evidence based treaty and has been commended by global leaders as providing the primary roadmap to a tobacco-free world. It has 181 Parties, representing 180 States and the European Union, and is supported by numerous nongovernmental organizations.

The Convention Secretariat wishes to make the following points and clarifications:

1. With regard to the president of this Foundation

Although the president of the Foundation was part of the WHO Secretariat during the negotiation of the WHO FCTC, the treaty had no single architect. It resulted from the work of hundreds of committed government representatives, individuals and organizations, and that is its greatest strength – teamwork.

The Foundation’s president is in no way linked to the Convention Secretariat, nor does he represent the Convention Secretariat’s views.

2. With regard to the Foundation’s funding

The Foundation for a Smoke-Free World describes itself as an independent organization. It reportedly will be funded solely with almost US$ 1 billion from Philip Morris International, the tobacco conglomerate.

There is extensive experience of tobacco-industry funded research that was later used to prevent effective tobacco control policies. It is clear that the industry aims to follow the same path in the area of non-traditional tobacco products, which are unregulated in many countries.

3. With regard to interactions with the tobacco industry

Parties to the WHO FCTC should note that any collaboration with this Foundation, due to its current funding arrangement that comes from a tobacco multinational, would constitute a clear breach of Article 5.3 of the Convention concerning tobacco industry interference.

Parties to the Convention have agreed, through the Guidelines to Article 5.3, that activities described as “socially responsible” by the tobacco industry, constitute a marketing and public-relations strategy that falls within the Convention’s definition of advertising, promotion and sponsorship. Parties should not endorse, support, form partnerships with or participate in tobacco industry activities described as socially responsible. Tobacco industry is clearly looking for a seat at the table.

4. With regard to new products

The tobacco industry is introducing new products in pursuit of profit rather than public health. For example, new “heat-no-burn” products contain tobacco and electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) contain nicotine, an addictive substance regulated through appropriate policies under Article 5.2(b) of the Convention related to legislative and administrative measures.

Parties to the Convention have agreed to consider applying regulatory measures to prohibit or restrict the manufacture, importation, distribution, presentation, sale and use of ENDS, as appropriate to their national laws and public health objectives. If other novel tobacco or nicotine products emerge, the way that they are treated needs to be considered in the same way.

5. With regard to possible effects on tobacco growers

Article 17 of the WHO FCTC requires Parties to promote, as appropriate, economically viable alternatives for tobacco workers and growers. The tobacco industry knows that it creates social problems, including the use of child labour. Initiatives endorsed by the industry and those it funds are not designed to solve the problems it creates, but to give a false impression of sympathy for its victims.

6. With regard to the impact of the WHO FCTC on public health

The WHO FCTC, despite the efforts of the tobacco industry to prevent progress, has substantially improved global public health through the evidence-based measures it endorses.

The WHO FCTC has been recognized as playing “a critical role as an authoritative and agreed catalyst and framework for action.” The use by the tobacco industry of research to prevent effective tobacco control policies, now in relation to non-traditional tobacco products, is proof that the policies originating from Parties’ implementation of the WHO FCTC provisions are having an important and lasting effect on tobacco control.

Wait, What? Tobacco Giant Backs Foundation to End Smoking

Sep 18th, 2017
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An old adage in journalism states that when a dog bites a man, it’s not news. But when a man bites a dog, now, that’s news. Well, the proverbial man just bit the dog in the form of a nearly $1 billion pledge to reduce smoking from the maker of Marlboro cigarettes.

https://www.insidephilanthropy.com/home/2017/9/18/turning-over-a-new-leaf-tobacco-giant-backs-foundation-to-end-smoking-1

Philip Morris International will donate $80 million a year for the next 12 years to the recently launched Foundation for a Smoke-Free World. The new foundation stresses independence from its donors and their agendas, but so far, the company behind Marlboro is its only backer.

The donation comes as Philip Morris is said to be preparing for a smoke-free future. More than 3 million smokers have switched to the company’s e-cigarette IQOS, according to Bloomberg. IQOS heats tobacco to produce a vapor instead of burning it, which the company believes makes it less harmful than conventional cigarettes. The company asked the FDA to approve marketing that sells the product as a device that may reduce the chance of smoking-related diseases.

Derek Yach, the man heading the new foundation, is a vocal supporter of e-cigarettes. The devices, which don’t contain tar, provide a safer alternative for smokers to use while weaning themselves off traditional cigarettes, Yach wrote in a 2015 editorial. Opponents argue that “safer” is not the same as “safe,” and claim that e-cigarettes act as a gateway drug for conventional cigarettes.

Yach is a former World Health Organization official who led the organization’s campaigns against health issues arising from unhealthy diets and smoking. He worked on a global tobacco treaty while at the organization, but has a history of making deals with the devil in the name of progress. Yach worked for PepsiCo for six years after leaving WHO, where he says he pushed the company to make products healthier, including chips with less salt and fat and drinks with less sugar. It’s hard to miss the parallels to Yach’s latest endeavor and its backer.

The Philip Morris donation to the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World was met with skepticism from some.

Deborah Arnott, the CEO of Action on Smoking and Health, a public health charity based in the U.K., criticized the announcement. “Tobacco industry claims can never be accepted at face value,” she said. “The tobacco industry has a terrible track record of funding research designed to support its efforts to block policies to cut smoking.”

Arnott has a point. The tobacco industry has a long and checkered past in meddling in medical and research fields to benefit its bottom line. From the 1920s through the 1940s, the industry leaned heavily on advertising that claimed cigarettes were “physician approved.”

More recently, the industry funded research designed to support the claim that secondhand smoke posed no danger to non-smokers, a review of millions of pages of industry documents revealed. Research proving the opposite was used to support smoking bans in public and private places.

Some worry that the new foundation bankrolled by Philip Morris will also produce research and disseminate information that misleads the public. The International Union against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease denounced the gift as “a billion-dollar bribe the tobacco company hopes will secure it a seat at the table with public health policymakers around the world… Through propaganda, it only has the potential to undermine, delay and obfuscate the work of public health policymakers and advocates who champion evidence-based measures to reduce tobacco use.” The Union said that the company will continue to spend exponentially more money to hook people in poor countries on smoking than on preventive efforts through the foundation.

Although smoking is on the decline in the U.S., tobacco use is still the leading preventable cause of death in the country, according the Center for Disease Control.

Worldwide, tobacco kills about 6 million people a year, which is more than AIDS and malaria combined. The number is projected to rise to 8 million by 2030.

Despite that, there’s not a widespread effort among funders to curb smoking, which is another reason the Philip Morris gift is notable. The two biggest names in the space right now are Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Gates Foundation. Back in 2015, the two teamed up to take on companies like Philip Morris that sue low- and middle-income countries to prevent their governments from enforcing strong tobacco control laws.

The tobacco giant’s intentions and the young foundation’s integrity remain to be seen.

OPEN LETTER TO PMI FROM 121 ORGANIZATIONS

Sep 14th, 2017
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PMI Sign On Letter

Sep 14th, 2017
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Canadian health groups respond to Philip Morris International’s $1 billion research fund

Sep 14th, 2017
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The Union denounces PMI launch of a ‘Foundation for a Smoke-free World’

Sep 13th, 2017
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Honduras takes on Australia over tobacco plain packaging

Sep 13th, 2017
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WHO report gives India high marks for fighting tobacco use

Jul 21st, 2017
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A new report by the World Health Organisation on the global use of tobacco shows India, Bangladesh and Bhutan on top of the list of South East Asian countries that have achieved a high level of tobacco control.

http://www.domain-b.com/organisation/who_collaborating_centre/20170721_tobacco.html

The prevalence of tobacco use in India has fallen from 34.1 per cent to 28.6 per cent over the last seven years, the report says, comparing data from two rounds of the Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS) in 2009-10 and 2016-17.

The WHO report titled Global Tobacco Epidemic, 2017: Monitoring Tobacco Use and Prevention Policies, was released in New York on Wednesday on the sidelines of the United Nations High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development. The report covers 194 countries, divided into The Americas, South East Asia, Europe, Eastern Mediterranean, Western Pacific, and Africa. There are 11 countries in the South East Asia group, including India.

Though the population worldwide protected by tobacco control measures has grown almost five-fold than ten years ago, the World Health Organisation (WHO) on Wednesday called on countries to do more to prioritise these life-saving policies.

In India, Mumbai, Kolkata, Delhi, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Pune, Surat, Kanpur, Jaipur, Lucknow and Nagpur are among the top 100 cities across the world named for the strict implementation of policies to prevent tobacco use. The report lists the cities population-wise, using figures published in the UN Statistics Division’s Demographic Yearbook.

Globally, the WHO report said about 4.7 billion people, or 63 per cent of the world’s population, are covered today by at least one comprehensive tobacco control measure. Ten years ago, in 2007, the number was only one billion, or 15 per cent of the world’s population.

However, tobacco use has still become the leading single preventable cause of death worldwide, killing over seven million people each year.

Its economic costs are also enormous, totalling more than $1.4 trillion in healthcare and lost productivity, according to WHO.

Meanwhile, the tobacco industry continues to hamper government efforts to fully implement life- and cost-saving interventions, by, for example, exaggerating the economic importance of the tobacco industry, discrediting proven science, and using litigation to intimidate governments, the report says.

Poor countries ahead
More than half of the top national performers on tobacco control are low- and middle-income countries, showing that progress is possible regardless of economic situation. A tracking of MPOWER measures – introduced by WHO in 2007 to assist in the country-level implementation of measures to reduce the demand for tobacco – has revealed that the number of people protected by at least one best-practice measure has quadrupled to 4.7 billion – or almost two-thirds of the world’s population.

As many as 121 out of 194 countries have introduced at least one MPOWER measure at the highest level of achievement (not including monitoring or mass media campaigns, which are assessed separately).

Thirty-four countries with a total population of 2 billion have adopted large graphic pack warnings. Six countries (Afghanistan, Cambodia, El Salvador, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Romania and Uganda) have adopted new laws making all indoor public places and workplaces smoke-free. Six countries (El Salvador, Estonia, India, Jamaica, Luxembourg and Senegal) have advanced to best-practice level with their tobacco use cessation services, the report says.

India and Nepal are regional and global leaders in implementing large, pictorial warning labels on tobacco packaging. With the increase in the size of pack warnings to 85 per cent of both front and back panels on all tobacco products, India now has the third largest pack warning label among all countries.

The findings of GATS-2 showed that graphic warning labels depicting throat cancer and oral cancer are a strong tool to discourage the youth from initiating tobacco, and have motivated 275 million current users to quit.

Dr Vinayak Prasad, Geneva-based head of the WHO Tobacco Free Initiative, told The Indian Express that among the many measures to control tobacco in India was the joint WHO-International Telecommunication Union initiative mCessation, launched in 2015 with the Ministries of Health and Family Welfare and Communication and Information Technology. ”The programme to encourage people to quit tobacco use registered more than two million users last year and the initial evaluation showed that more than 7% quit successfully after six months,” Dr Prasad said.

The WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC), the first international treaty negotiated under the auspices of WHO, was adopted by the World Health Assembly in 2003, and entered into force in 2005. It has since become one of the most widely embraced treaties in UN history.

Tobacco companies interfere with health regulations, WHO reports

Jul 20th, 2017
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Tobacco industry is interfering with government attempts to regulate products and aggressively pursuing new markets in Africa, World Health Organization says

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/19/tobacco-industry-government-policy-interference-regulations

Cigarette manufacturers are attempting to thwart government tobacco controls wherever possible, even as governments make progress regulating the products, a new World Health Organization report has found.

World health officials also warn that tobacco companies have moved their fight to the developing world, such as Africa, where smoking rates are predicted to rise by double digits in the coming decades.

“Tobacco industry interference in government policymaking represents a deadly barrier to advancing health and development in many countries,” said Douglas Bettcher, director of the WHO’s department for the prevention of noncommunicable diseases. “But by monitoring and blocking such activities, we can save lives and sow the seeds for a sustainable future for all.”

Tobacco-related diseases are the leading preventable cause of death worldwide. The products kill more than 7 million people each year – more than HIV and Aids, tuberculosis and malaria combined. The effects of the substance are also costly. Researchers believe that tobacco-related harm costs the world $1.4tn in healthcare costs and lost productivity.

A recent investigation by the Guardian found that tobacco companies, including British American Tobacco, threatened African countries with domestic and trade lawsuits if certain anti-smoking measures were put in place. BAT says it is not against all regulations but needs to take action from “time to time”.

A Reuters investigation found that BAT’s arch-rival, Philip Morris International, developed a vast lobbying campaign to delay and prevent tobacco controls. PMI says there is nothing improper about its executives engaging with government officials.

Wednesday’s WHO report, which was funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies, comes on the same day as a shareholder vote on a $49bn merger between BAT and Reynolds American Incorporated, a deal that would make BAT the largest listed tobacco company in the world.

“The epicentre of this epidemic has moved to the developing world,” said Dr Vera Luiza da Costa e Silva, head of WHO’s convention secretariat. “Low- and middle-income countries struggle to combat a tobacco industry seeking to pursue new markets, often through shameless interference with public health policymaking.”

Currently, the World Health Organization recommends countries put in place six regulations health officials see as critical to reducing smoking: systems to monitor smoking rates; laws to protect people from secondhand smoke; tools to help people quit; warnings about the dangers of tobacco use; enforcement of advertising bans, and increased taxes on tobacco products.

Six in 10 countries have implemented at least one of the six protections, officials said, four times the population that was protected in 2007.

However, progress is lopsided. Some recommendations have been far more widely accepted than others. For example, 3.5 billion people in 78 countries are protected by graphic warnings on cigarette packs, but only 15% of the world’s population is protected by a comprehensive advertising ban, and high tobacco taxes, while very effective, are one of the least-implemented measures.

Even some wealthier nations have had trouble getting tobacco control measures in effect. In the United States, for example, there are no graphic warnings on cigarette packs because of industry lawsuits and regulatory delay, and tobacco taxes remain low.

Anti-tobacco lawmakers and campaigners in the US blame the slow progress on “pervasive” tobacco industry influence, which reaches all the way to top officials in the Trump White House.

“Working together, countries can prevent millions of people from dying each year from preventable tobacco-related illness,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director-general. “Governments around the world must waste no time”.

Bloomberg Philanthropies funds Vital Strategies, which part funds the Guardian’s Tobacco: a deadly business series, the content of which is editorially independent.

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