Volume 1
The tobacco industry and the health risks of smoking : second report / Health Committee.
- Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Health Committee
- Date:
- 2000
Licence: Open Government Licence
Credit: The tobacco industry and the health risks of smoking : second report / Health Committee. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![227. The idea that developing countries were uninterested in tobacco contro! was rebutted by Dr Yach. He said that the WHO represented the will of its 192 member states and that “‘there is virtually no other area of public health where there has been so much international consensus.” He went on to state that, although it was sometimes said that African ministers accorded tobacco control a low priority, at a conference of African health ministers held in October 1999, a range of tobacco control options were discussed and that “in their discussions on tobacco they acknowledged the need for action on all the areas being discussed in western countries ... This was a relatively short meeting with a massive public health agenda. They selected to highlight the importance of tobacco as a public health problem because they know that somewhere down the line they are going to face the problem and addressing it early and vigorously is going to save enormous public resources. The truth is that wherever we go there is not a single country where increasingly the ministries of health and the ministries of finance are not beginning to recognise that tobacco control makes sound public health sense and sound economic sense”.**” 228. Mr Broughton’s comments were further undermined by Zhang Wenkang, Minister for Public Health, People’s Republic of China, who stated in correspondence to the Committee that “The Ministry of Health of China has recognized that the effect of tobacco on health is an important public health issue. In order to protect the health of the public, Chinese governments at all levels have been actively facilitating the tobacco control programme in the last twenty years ... We think that tobacco control ... [requires the] joint efforts of all countries in the world. Therefore, we support the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control of the World Health Organisation”.*”° 229. There are also concerns that the tobacco industry’s negative attitude towards the WHO’s tobacco control objectives might go beyond words to deeds. Dr Yach quoted a senior Philip Morris official speaking at a Philip Morris sponsored conference in 1988, where there were also representatives from other tobacco companies, as saying that the WHO ““‘has an extraordinary influence on government and consumers and we must find a way to defuse this and reorientate the activities to their prescribed mandate’”. Dr Yach also said that a document emerging from the conference “discussed ‘countermeasures designed to contain, neutralise, reorientate ... WHO’ and stated ‘the necessary resources should be allocated to stop WHO in their tracks’”.°°! Such was the level of concern felt by thé WHO at the activities of the tobacco industry, that it established an inquiry into “the way in which WHO and the UN systems have had their policies thwarted by the industry ... This is unprecedented ...” The World Bank has also joined the inquiry and has nominated a top anti-corruption expert to assist the inquiry.*” 230. We welcome the Framework Convention proposed by the World Health Organisation and the Government’s support for it. However, any success will be dependent on a responsible approach being taken by the tobacco companies. Depressingly, there is little sign of that in the cheap jibes made at the WHO’s expense by BAT. To call an organisation committed to improving global health ‘zealots’ and a ‘super-nanny’ because of its concern about the 10 million deaths which will be caused by tobacco each year by the late 2020s seems to us bizarre. We hope that the other companies - and, belatedly, BAT - will work constructively with the WHO. On a national level, we recommend that the Government requires the British tobacco companies to provide an annual summary of the action they have taken to co-operate with the WHO, to which the WHO should be invited to respond. If the action taken by the companies is not satisfactory, further action, including legislative and fiscal approaches, should be considered. It would be a hollow victory if, as a result of more stringent action taken on tobacco control in the developed world, smoking related deaths were merely exported to the world’s poorer nations. V THE TOBACCO ARCHIVES 231. As aconsequence of court orders following the Minnesota Tobacco Trial, and the disclosure of documents following investigations conducted by the US Food and Drug Administration and Federal Trade Commission, around 35 million pages of internal tobacco company documents from the major US tobacco companies have recently been disclosed. As a consequence of the terms of the settlement between the State of Minnesota, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota and nine 389 Q286. 390 Amongst the measures adopted by the Chinese Government are: bans and restrictions on advertising; restrictions on smoking in public places; and a Tobacco Free Schools initiative. See Ev., p.631. 391 Q269. 392.9269.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b32221083_0001_0071.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
