Clear The Air News Tobacco Blog Rotating Header Image

September 2nd, 2011:

British American Tobacco Seeks Australia Govt Advice Through Courts – WSJ.com

http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20110904-704182.html
SYDNEY (Dow Jones)–British American Tobacco PLC (BTI) said Monday it will
again pursue the Australian government through the courts in an effort to
obtain the legal advice given to the government in its decision to push
ahead with measures to implement plain packaging on cigarette packets.

From January next year, the Australian government wants to remove all
branding and advertising from cigarette packets.

BAT, along with other tobacco companies, is fiercely opposed to the planned
packaging measures and has threatened to challenge the proposed legislation
in court.

Having already failed in earlier attempts to force the government to release
its legal advice, BAT said it plans to appeal to the High Court to secure
the information.

The tobacco manufacturer also said it will challenge the plain packaging
laws in court, if the new laws are approved.

-By Enda Curran, Dow Jones Newswires; 61-2-8272-4687;
enda.curran@dowjones.com

Big Tobacco’s brazen denials and dirty tricks

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/science/news/article.cfm?c_id=82&objectid=10749180

Tobacco companies continued to deny links between smoking and cancer right up until the 1990s. Photo / Thinkstock

Tobacco companies continued to deny links between smoking and cancer right up until the 1990s. Photo / Thinkstock

Ever since the link between smoking and lung cancer was established more than 50 years ago, the tobacco industry has displayed extraordinary tenacity when it comes to denying the scientific evidence showing that smoking kills.

In 1952, British scientist Richard Doll, working with his mentor Professor Bradford Hill, compiled a seminal study published in the British Medical Journal that established a “real association between carcinoma of the lung and smoking”.

Over the next few years and decades, the evidence became stronger, but just as soon as this evidence began to emerge, Big Tobacco quickly launched a damage-limitation exercise. As early as 1953, the tobacco industry sought to spread disinformation to counter medical evidence. Tobacco companies hired New York public relations company Hill & Knowlton to “get the industry out of this hole”, as industry documents released four decades later as part of legal processes revealed.

“We have one essential job – which can be simply said: Stop public panic … There is only one problem – confidence, and how to establish it; public assurance, and how to create it,” one Hill & Knowlton paper said.

“And, most important, how to free millions of Americans from the guilty fear that is going to arise deep in their biological depths – regardless of any pooh-poohing logic – every time they light a cigarette.”

In Britain, British American Tobacco (BAT) even invented a secret code word for lung cancer that was to be used in its internal memos.

The “C” word was to be substituted by Zephyr. As one BAT memo written in 1957 stated: “As a result of several statistical surveys, the idea has arisen that there is a causal relationship between Zephyr and tobacco smoking, particularly cigarette smoking.”

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, tobacco companies were brazen in their denials despite the mounting scientific evidence linking smoking with a range of cancers.

“None of the things which have been found in tobacco smoke are at concentrations which can be considered harmful,” said a 1976 Philip Morris document. “Anything can be considered harmful. Apple sauce is harmful if you get too much of it.”

During the 1980s, behind closed doors, there were doubts about whether the denialist charade could be maintained much longer. “The company’s position on causation is simply not believed by the overwhelming majority of independent observers, scientist and doctors,” said one internal BAT document.

And then in the 1990s came another bombshell. Second-hand smoke inhaled by “passive smoking” was linked with ill-health and there were calls to introduce smoking bans.

In 1992, the US Environmental Protection Agency produced a report on “environmental tobacco smoke” and concluded that it is a cancer-causing substance. In Britain, a 1998 report of the Scientific Committee on Tobacco and Health stated: “Passive smoking is a cause of lung cancer and childhood respiratory disease. There is also evidence that passive smoking is a cause of ischaemic heart disease and cot death, middle-ear disease and asthmatic attacks in children.”

Despite the evidence, tobacco companies refused to accept the conclusions. Philip Morris, the world’s biggest cigarette company, began a campaign to undermine the scientific case against second-hand smoke, highlighting what it labelled “junk science”.

Its strategy was best summed up in a letter written in 1993 by Ellen Merlo, senior vice-president of corporate affairs, to the chief executive. “It is our objective to prevent states and cities, as well as businesses, from passive-smoking bans,” she wrote.

Many tobacco companies have accepted that smoking causes lung cancer, but refuse to admit that passive smoking can cause disease in non-smokers. But having lost the debate over smoke-free offices and public spaces, the industry is turning its sights against the possible introduction of plain packaging.

Their fight against these proposals is based on undermining scientific evidence that plain packaging can reduce the number of children and young adults who take up smoking. They seek to discredit the research, a tactic they have used for more than 50 years of scientific denialism.

– INDEPENDENT

Reports on Industry Activity from Outside UCSF (University of California, San Francisco)

Abstract
The global Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) requires
nations to ban all tobacco advertising and promotion. In the face of these restrictions,
tobacco packaging has become the key promotional vehicle for the
tobacco industry to interest smokers and potential smokers in tobacco products.
This paper reviews available research into the likely impact of mandatory
plain packaging and internal tobacco industry statements about the importance
of packs as promotional vehicles. It critiques legal objections raised by the industry
about plain packaging violating laws and international trade agreements,
showing these to be without foundation. Plain packaging of all tobacco products
would remove a key remaining means for the industry to promote its products
to billions of the world’s smokers and future smokers. Governments have appropriated
large surface areas of tobacco packs for health warnings without legal
impediment or need to compensate tobacco companies. Requiring plain packaging
is consistent with the intention to ban all tobacco promotions. There is
no impediment in the FCTC to interpreting tobacco advertising and promotion
to include tobacco packs.

AbstractThe global Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) requiresnations to ban all tobacco advertising and promotion. In the face of these restrictions,tobacco packaging has become the key promotional vehicle for thetobacco industry to interest smokers and potential smokers in tobacco products.This paper reviews available research into the likely impact of mandatoryplain packaging and internal tobacco industry statements about the importanceof packs as promotional vehicles. It critiques legal objections raised by the industryabout plain packaging violating laws and international trade agreements,showing these to be without foundation. Plain packaging of all tobacco productswould remove a key remaining means for the industry to promote its productsto billions of the world’s smokers and future smokers. Governments have appropriatedlarge surface areas of tobacco packs for health warnings without legalimpediment or need to compensate tobacco companies. Requiring plain packagingis consistent with the intention to ban all tobacco promotions. There isno impediment in the FCTC to interpreting tobacco advertising and promotionto include tobacco packs.

Download PDF : Plain packaging Freeman et al

South Africa BATSA

Download PDF : medMD77CCKH

Tobacco-Related Programs and Activities of the U.S. Department of Agriculture: Operation and Cost

Abstract. Taken together, all of the directly tobacco-related activities of the USDA generated net expendituresof an estimated $85.8 million in FY2004, and the budget anticipates net revenues of $32.6 million for FY2005.

Download PDF : 97-417

FDA Regulation of Tobacco Products: A Historical, Policy and Legal Analysis

Abstract. This report examines the legislative debate over giving FDA the authority to regulate tobacco
products and provides some analysis of H.R. 1108/S. 625. It begins with an overview of the FDA’s 1996 tobacco
rule that includes a summary of the agency’s arguments for asserting jurisdiction over tobacco products. That is
followed by an analysis of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in FDA v. Brown & Williamson, which overturned
the FDA tobacco rule. The report then reviews the 1997 proposed national tobacco settlement, which would
have codified the FDA rule and given the agency explicit authority to regulate tobacco products as medical
devices. It includes a discussion of the FDA provisions in the McCain tobacco bill (see Table 1), which was
introduced and debated in the 105th Congress in an attempt to implement the proposed settlement. The final
section of the report summarizes the legislative history and provisions of H.R. 1108/S. 625 (see Table 2), and
discusses some of the key issues, including preemption and the regulation of reduced-risk products.

Abstract. This report examines the legislative debate over giving FDA the authority to regulate tobaccoproducts and provides some analysis of H.R. 1108/S. 625. It begins with an overview of the FDA’s 1996 tobaccorule that includes a summary of the agency’s arguments for asserting jurisdiction over tobacco products. That isfollowed by an analysis of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in FDA v. Brown & Williamson, which overturnedthe FDA tobacco rule. The report then reviews the 1997 proposed national tobacco settlement, which wouldhave codified the FDA rule and given the agency explicit authority to regulate tobacco products as medicaldevices. It includes a discussion of the FDA provisions in the McCain tobacco bill (see Table 1), which wasintroduced and debated in the 105th Congress in an attempt to implement the proposed settlement. The finalsection of the report summarizes the legislative history and provisions of H.R. 1108/S. 625 (see Table 2), anddiscusses some of the key issues, including preemption and the regulation of reduced-risk products.

DOWNLOAD PDF : 2239