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July 3rd, 2015:

Saving the World’s Population From a Post-2015 Tobacco Epidemic

http://www.who.int/fctc/mediacentre/opedsdgs/en/

Halting the Tobacco Epidemic in the post-2015 development agenda, July 2015

By Dr Vera Luiza da Costa e Silva Head of the Convention Secretariat WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control

The doctor who sees Mario and diagnoses terminal lung cancer is depressed by the outcome, but there’s nothing he can do. He tells the father-of-four, a factory worker, to go home and get some rest. In reality, he’s sent away to die. Much the same happens to Maria, a single mother of two children who’s also the sole provider for her parents. She has emphysema.

It’s 2030 and both Mario and Maria have been smoking for three decades, like millions of others in their homeland in a low-income country. Now the tobacco epidemic has arrived with a vengeance and the healthcare system just can’t cope. Hospital wards are full to overflowing with people suffering from tobacco-related diseases including cancer, heart disease, emphysema and stroke. The country can’t afford enough treatments, or even palliative care.

It’s a very different story in the developed world of 2030, where tobacco consumption has been falling for decades and where expensive new drugs and treatments are showing success. As a result, wealthier countries see tobacco consumption and illness as yesterday’s problem, requiring little attention.

Right now, in 2015, forecasts of the coming epidemic are stark, even frightening. About 100 million deaths were caused by smoking in the 20th century, more than in the two world wars combined.

At current rates, the number of deaths from tobacco will rise to 1 billion in this century. While tobacco consumption is falling in the developed world, it is rising in poorer countries.

This tragedy, aggravated by the unregulated supply of tobacco products, can be stopped. It’s possible to help smokers in developing countries who are being targeted by transnational tobacco companies seeking to lure new consumers. Cost-effective tobacco-control measures would help smokers to quit and dissuade potential addicts, especially children and women, from taking up tobacco use. It could save the lives of some of the 8 million people who by 2030 will be dying annually from tobacco-linked illness. But governments have to act now.

This year sees two crucial conferences which could reinvigorate the battle against tobacco. In September, the United Nations General Assembly will agree on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a critical series of worldwide metrics for the world to reach by 2030. And later this month, methods of funding the SDGs will be discussed at the Third International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD) in Addis Ababa.

These meetings present an unmissable opportunity. And that’s why the Secretariat of the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) is working with its partners to push tobacco onto the SDG agenda and to keep it there.

Failure would be a huge setback. Issues excluded from the SDGs may well be relegated from the international agenda, or forgotten altogether. We can’t let that happen.

So the FCTC Secretariat, employing a mandate from the Conference of the Parties, has taken steps to revitalise the campaign. We have contacted Parties to the Convention and sought action on two fronts.

Firstly, we need to ensure that the reference to the Convention remains in the final SDGs. At the moment, paragraph 3.a underlines the need “to strengthen implementation of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in all countries as appropriate.” There is also a commitment that by 2030 there should be a one-third reduction in premature mortality from non-communicable diseases, which includes tobacco-related illness.

Of course, in order to have some effect, it is also important to have a metric. So we’re pressing for an indicator monitoring the number of people aged 15 and over using tobacco products. Likewise we are advocating an indicator measuring the probability of death from cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, or chronic respiratory disease between the ages of 30 and 70.

But none of this will have any effect unless there are funds to finance the implementation of the treaty provisions and that’s why we’re also seeking changes at the Addis Ababa Ffd Conference, where UN Member States will finalise their decisions on how to fund the SDGs.

The campaign against tobacco needs money and there’s one obvious source – taxation (It’s worth noting that this approach has the support of the World Bank.) So we’re promoting the explicit inclusion of such pledges in the Addis Ababa Outcome Document.

Here’s why. Research indicates that a 10% rise in price leads to a decline in tobacco consumption of more than 5% in low- to middle-income countries like China and South Africa. And it’s been shown to work – Turkey cut smoking by 13% from 2008 to 2012, a time when excise duties were sharply increased.

This is a virtuous process, allowing revenues to be reinvested. Most national tobacco control programmes are poorly staffed and under-resourced, especially in low- to middle-income countries which account for 80% of worldwide tobacco-related deaths. Communication and advocacy campaigns, research and monitoring activities and even funding to defend countries from tobacco industry litigation, need resources at all levels.

Achieving the goals set out here will, I believe, re-energise the worldwide tobacco control movement. And it will help all the Marios and Marias, throughout the world, who might otherwise face a bleak diagnosis in a doctor’s office in the years ahead.

Tobacco taxes can be used to finance the Sustainable Development Goals

Joint position of the WHO and WHO FCTC on the new SDGs and Financing for Development

Illicit trade report on tobacco disproved

http://www.manilatimes.net/illicit-trade-report-on-tobacco-disproved/197391/

The Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (Seatca) has disproved a new tobacco industry research funded by a giant cigarette firm on illicit trade in 14 Asian countries, including the Philippines.

The giant tobacco firm funded a second research on illicit trade of tobacco products in Asia, called “Asia-14 Illicit Tobacco Indicator” which was carried out jointly by a Washington-based group, International Tax and Investment Center (ITIC), and a UK group, Oxford Economics (OE).

“It is no surprise that the findings of this research, like its predecessor [Asia-11 Illicit Tobacco Indicator 2012], are pro-tobacco industry, Seatca said.

The Asia-14 Report said the 341.2 percent excise tax increase (2.72 pesos to 12 pesos) in the Philippines last January 1, 2013 was the main driver of the alleged large volume increase in Illicit Consumption at 198 percent or 18.1 percent of Total Consumption.

An alleged 89.8 percent of Illicit Consumption and 16.3 percent of Total Consumption in 2013 was attributed to Domestic Illicit Consumption, which was estimated to have grown to 11 billion cigarettes based on the Asia-14 Report.

Like its predecessor (Asia-11 Illicit Tobacco Indicator 2012), the research findings are biased in favor of an international tobacco company, Seatca said.

Seatca pointed out in its critique that the Asia-14 Report failed to highlight significantly higher tax revenues after the 2013 excise tax increase.

For tobacco excise alone, the Philippine government collected P70.4 billion, higher by 113.7 percent compared to 2012.

Excise revenue gains were therefore 454 percent higher than the Asia-14 Report’s estimated excise tax losses in 2013.

In effect, Seatca’s critique disproved allegations that the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) was losing revenues through illicit tobacco trade.

BIR Commissioner Kim Henares earlier said the overwhelming growth in sin tax collection was an indication of the inconclusiveness of the Asia-14 report alleging the fast-rising illegal cigarette trade in the country.

According to the main reviewer of the research, Prof. Hana Ross, Principal Research Officer of the Economics of Tobacco Control Project at the University of Cape Town, “The Asia-14 report fails to provide scientifically sound and unbiased information to policy makers and other tobacco market stakeholders.

“The reason for this is simple. The figures and statistics it reports are products of either incorrect or unverified/unverifiable estimation methods applied to often questionable data from multiple sources that do not blend,” Ross said, adding “that the quality of the original data collection is questionable due to the lack of representativeness and possibly intended bias. Many secondary data come from sources with an obvious conflict of interest.”

“More seriously, the report is full of errors and mistakes, which is surprising given the ‘commercial’ quality of the results. For example, the report does not make any distinction between smoking incidence and smoking prevalence, even though these are two very different concepts. It also confuses ‘sales’ and ‘consumption,’ two fundamental concepts on which the calculations are based.”

Ross said, “While illicit tobacco trade is a problem that requires government attention, it is often blown out of proportion and out of context by the tobacco industry in order to discourage governments from increasing tobacco taxes and implementing other regulatory measures.”

Dr. Ulysses Dorotheo, Seatca’s FCTC program director, said, “Governments should reject partnerships and non-binding agreements with the tobacco industry to solve illicit trade. Instead, governments should secure the supply chain in accordance with measures contained in the FCTC Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products, which was adopted in 2012 by the 180 Parties to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC).

PHILIP MORRIS INTERNATIONAL INC.’s ELEVENTH ANNUAL CERTIFICATION OF COMPLIANCE

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SEATCA rejects tobacco research findings

http://www.mb.com.ph/seatca-rejects-tobacco-research-findings/

The Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (SEATCA) has stamped “Failed” a new tobacco industry research funded by a giant cigarette firm on illicit trade in 14 Asian countries, including the Philippines.

Failed: A Critique of the ITIC/OE Asia-14 Illicit Tobacco Indicator 2013 (full text), see:http://seatca.org/dmdocuments/Asia%2014%20Critique_Final_20May2015.pdf
Last year, a giant tobacco firm funded a second research on illicit trade of tobacco products in Asia, called “Asia-14 Illicit Tobacco Indicator” which was carried out jointly by a Washington based group, International Tax and Investment Center (ITIC) and a UK group, Oxford Economics (OE).

“It is no surprise that the findings of this research, like its predecessor (Asia-11 Illicit Tobacco Indicator 2012), are pro-tobacco industry, SEATCA said.

The Asia-14 Report claimed that the 341.2% excise tax increase (2.72 to 12 pesos) in the Philippines last January 1, 2013 was the main driver of the alleged large volume increase in Illicit Consumption at 198% or 18.1% of Total Consumption.

An alleged 89.8% of Illicit Consumption and 16.3% of Total Consumption in 2013 was attributed to Domestic Illicit Consumption which was estimated to have grown to 11 billion cigarettes based on the Asia-14 Report.

However, like its predecessor (Asia-11 Illicit Tobacco Indicator 2012), the research findings are biased to an international tobacco company, SEATCA said.

In conjunction with the recent World No Tobacco Day, SEATCA pointed out in their critique that the Asia-14 Report failed to highlight significantly higher tax revenues after the 2013 excise tax increase; for tobacco excise alone, the government collected P70.4 billion, higher by 113.7% compared to 2012. Excise revenue gains were therefore 454% higher than the Asia-14 Report’s estimated excise tax losses in 2013. In effect, SEATCA’s critique disproves allegations that the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) is losing revenues through illicit tobacco trade. BIR Commissioner Kim Henares earlier said the overwhelming growth in sin tax collection was an indication of the inconclusiveness of the Asia-14 report alleging the fast-rising illegal cigarette trade in the country.

According to the main reviewer of the research, Prof. Hana Ross, Principal Research Officer of the Economics of Tobacco Control Project at the University of Cape Town, “The Asia-14 report fails to provide scientifically sound and unbiased information to policy makers and other tobacco market stakeholders.

“The reason for this is simple. The figures and statistics it reports are products of either incorrect or unverified/unverifiable estimation methods applied to often questionable data from multiple sources that do not blend,” Ross said, adding “that the quality of the original data collection is questionable due to the lack of representativeness and possibly intended bias. Many secondary data come from sources with an obvious conflict of interest.”

“More seriously, the report is full of errors and mistakes, which is surprising given the ‘commercial’ quality of the results. For example, the report does not make any distinction between smoking incidence and smoking prevalence, even though these are two very different concepts. It also confuses ‘sales’ and ‘consumption,’ two fundamental concepts on which the calculations are based.” She emphasized that: “While illicit tobacco trade is a problem that requires government attention, it is often blown out of proportion and out of context by the tobacco industry in order to discourage governments from increasing tobacco taxes and implementing other regulatory measures.” Dr. Ulysses Dorotheo, SEATCA’s FCTC program director, said: “Governments should reject partnerships and non-binding agreements with the tobacco industry to solve illicit trade. Instead, governments should secure the supply chain in accordance with measures contained in the FCTC Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products, which was adopted in 2012 by the 180 Parties to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC).

The new report claims to take advantage of newly available data and improved methodology and covers all 10 ASEAN member nations plus Australia, Hong Kong, Pakistan and Taiwan.

Here are the other major concerns of the failed report:

• Different sources and methods are used across countries, leading to results that are not comparable to one another, yet presented for comparison, without acknowledgement of their distinctions.

• As was pointed out in the SEATCA critique of the Asia-11 report, no rationale is given for including or excluding countries from coverage in this report. The report excludes many of the region’s largest cigarette-consuming countries, such as China, Japan, and South Korea while including Pakistan, geographically an outlier.

• Many methodological approaches are either weak or lack sufficient description that would allow to judge their merits.

• The quality of the original data collection is questionable due to the lack of representativeness and possibly intended bias.

• Many secondary data come from sources with an obvious conflict of interest. Beyond these weaknesses, the Asia-14 report in many cases fails to provide sufficient description of data used to generate the estimates. This lack of transparency makes it difficult, if not impossible, for the report to be fully analyzed or critiqued; it certainly prevents replication of the report’s estimates and other statistics. Even the authors’ self-described attempt to provide more detail in the Annexes of the report falls short of the level of disclosure provided in academic studies and does not permit thorough evaluation. (Jun Ramirez)