But first, the government has to decide whether it wants to defend the labels it developed or go back to the drawing board.

The Department of Justice has 90 days to appeal the case to the high court. A spokesman declined to comment on whether it would.

Calls from some anti-tobacco groups to do so came quickly.

Wednesday’s decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit “was wrong on the science and wrong on the law, and we urge the government to appeal this ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court,” Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said in a statement.

In August, a three-member panel of the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled in favor of five tobacco companies, which argued the labels violate the First Amendment rights of corporations. The labels are supposed to take up half of each cigarette package.

That case directly challenged the nine labels FDA developed to implement the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act of 2009. They include graphic images meant to illustrate the consequences of smoking, including an autopsied cadaver and a man smoking through a tracheotomy, a hole in his neck.

The majority argued that the government showed no evidence that the labels would effectively reduce smoking — the science is a matter of debate — and that the government, therefore, could not force the industry to foot the bill for advertising an anti-tobacco message.

In March, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit upheld the underlying provisions in the law before the labels were created. The tobacco industry has already appealed that ruling to the Supreme Court but asked it not to take action on it before the case was resolved in the D.C. court.

“Now, it’s up to the government to decide if these particular warning labels are actually defensible to the Supreme Court,” said Mary Rouvelas, senior counsel for the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, who supports the labels.

Other countries have introduced similar labels. Anti-smoking advocates expect to see mounting evidence that the labels are effective, but the FDA produced limited data to suggest that its labels would work.

One option the FDA could consider, Rouvelas said, would be to adopt labels that are basically the same as labels in other countries. Then the agency could use evidence of their effectiveness to make its case.

“It’s pretty clear that the [D.C. court] had a problem with the scientific studies,” Rouvelas said, adding that First Amendment cases often rise or fall with scientific data that shows any infringement on free speech is narrowly tailored to accomplish a legitimate government goal.

In any event, the labels will not go on cigarette packs anytime soon.

If the government appeals the case and Supreme Court agrees to hear it, the case most likely will be argued next fall and decided spring or winter 2014. Under the law, the labels were supposed to go on packages in October.

The graphic warnings aren’t the only labeling issues the industry is grappling with.

Last month, U.S. District Court Judge Gladys Kessler ruled that tobacco companies will have to publish “corrective statements” about the health effects of cigarettes in package inserts, on corporate websites and in national print and broadcast advertisements — to make amends for decades of misleading the public.

The statements include that tobacco kills an average 1,200 people a day. The industry has not yet said whether it will appeal the ruling.

See this article at its original location>

Read the full article here>

Excellencies, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen,

I am delighted to address this fifth session of the Conference of the Parties to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. Our shared goal is to see this treaty fully implemented, to see its powers fully used to reduce tobacco consumption and exposure to tobacco smoke, everywhere in the world.

As this session opens, support for the Convention has grown to 176 Parties, representing nearly 90% of the world’s population. This shows the scale of the impact you can have.

Since the treaty came into force seven years ago, the work of this conference has given more than ten articles of the Convention teeth and traction by creating supplementary instruments.

You have done so in a spirit of solidarity, fully mindful of the transnational nature of the tobacco threat, and fully aware of the need to build implementation capacity among Parties with meager resources. Success depends on a capacity to implement, everywhere.

In crafting guidelines and recommendations, this body reaches well beyond the domains of medicine and public health. You gather evidence and support from multiple sectors, like trade, finance, agriculture, education, labour, the environment, law enforcement, and the judicial system.

The work of this conference is a model of multisectoral collaboration but also of an interagency response, as you will be discussing during this session.

The Convention is a powerful instrument for prevention, but also for international cooperation. This importance has been recognized in recent political declarations on noncommunicable diseases and on the social determinants of health.

You are inspired by the preventive power of what you are doing. I can think of no other undertaking that can make such a huge contribution to better health in every corner of the world. And that includes the health of young children and unborn babies.

This has always been one of the anti-tobacco campaign’s most compelling arguments. Tobacco use is the epidemiological equivalent of a drive-by shooting. It hurts the innocent bystanders as well as those held captive by an addiction that damages their health.

You are united by a shared spirit of determination but also out of necessity, given the nature of the opposition, of the forces that are equally determined to undermine, circumvent, and interfere.

The tobacco industry behaves like a corrosive substance that can eat through, or seep through, any crack or fissure in the armour of our defences. Our response must be to seal all these cracks and fissures, one by one, with science and evidence, supported by instruments for applying this knowledge and backed by the rule of law.

This is what you are doing. This is what makes the work of this conference so monumentally important. With the guidelines and recommendations you put forward, and now with the first protocol before you for approval, you are hemming in the enemy, cutting off its options, giving it less space to manoeuvre.

As we know from experience, the tobacco industry will challenge the best science, promote arguments that have nothing to do with the facts, and fund front groups to give these arguments a cloak of legitimacy. This industry will lobby lawmakers, woo the press and, now, fund plaintiffs to challenge legislation.

In a recent and most disturbing trend, the showdown between governments, seeking to safeguard the health of their citizens, and industry, seeking to maintain its profits, has moved to the courtroom.

I know you will want to join me in congratulating Australia and Norway for recent rulings that upheld the legality of their tough control measures. We are united in our support for other countries facing similar interference.

See the complete speech here>

The tobacco industry has always been a major player in congressional campaigns, but a new online map (ash.org/map) shows just how pervasive tobacco money is in politics. The map, produced by Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), allows you to click on your home district and see how much money your Member of Congress and Senators have accepted.

“Given the destruction that tobacco causes in this country, it is outrageous that so many politicians accept tobacco money,” said Dr. Alfred Munzer, Chairman of the Board of ASH and former President of the American Lung Association. Dr. Munzer, a pulmonologist, has campaigned for decades against tobacco use. “Roughly 80% of my patients suffer from tobacco-related diseases. No politician should share in the ill-gotten profits of the tobacco industry or owe favors to big tobacco.”

In the nearly 50 years since the 1964 Surgeon General’s report linking smoking with cancer and other diseases, the prevalence of smoking in the U.S. has plummeted, but tobacco still claims the lives of roughly 500,000 Americans each year. Smoking rates are still extremely high in some areas, and approximately 3,000 children start smoking every day.

Globally, tobacco is considered an epidemic by the World Health Organization. About 100 million people died from tobacco in the 20^th century, a toll higher than both world wars combined. The WHO estimates that without dramatic action, tobacco will claim one billion lives this century.

“The United States has joined with the rest of the world in calling for serious action about tobacco, and part of that is acknowledging that the tobacco industry is the vector of the disease,” said ASH director Laurent Huber. The U.S. signed on to a UN political declaration last year that recognizes the need to tackle the tobacco epidemic and highlights “the fundamental conflict of interest between the tobacco industry and public health,” the reason why big tobacco should stay away from public policy. Huber added, “The public interest and the interests of the tobacco industry are diametrically opposed. It is simply unethical for politicians to take tobacco money.”

In addition to the massive health costs of tobacco use, there are dire economic implications. Tobacco disease costs taxpayers, including nonsmokers, hundreds of billions of dollars a year. One study estimated the cost to society of each pack of cigarettes at $18. Stronger tobacco control measures would go a long way toward reducing the deficit and saving medicare.

The tobacco industry is bi-partisan when it comes to buying political favors. Dozens of Democrats as well as Republicans gladly accept donations from tobacco corporations, and for decades members of both parties have returned the favor by voting for tobacco interests. After years of effort, Congress finally gave FDA limited authority over tobacco in 2009, but only after Philip Morris, the number one tobacco industry donor, said it was OK. Even now the tobacco industry seeks to undermine the effectiveness of FDA regulation.

# # #

The next negotiating round of the Trans- Pacific Partnership will take place in Leesburg, Virginia from September 6-15, 2012. USTR will be hosting a Direct Stakeholder Engagement event on Sunday, September 9, 2012. ASH urges the United States Trade Representative to submit its draft tobacco exception when negotiators meet in Leesburg Virginia to discuss the TPP, a giant free trade agreement among 11 countries.  USTR announced the exception in May, but two negotiating rounds have now come and gone and our negotiation partners have yet to see it.

For additional information visit USTR >

The World Health Organization (WHO) strongly welcomes the landmark decision from Australia’s High Court to dismiss a legal challenge from the tobacco industry, and calls on the rest of the world to follow Australia’s tough stance on tobacco marketing.

Several major tobacco companies challenged Australia’s legislation to require cigarettes and other tobacco products to be sold in plain packaging without any branding. But the industry’s attempt to derail this effective tobacco control measure failed. As of December 2012, Australia will be the first country to sell cigarettes in drab, olive-green packaging without branding.

With Australia’s victory, public health enters a brave new world of tobacco control. Plain packaging is a highly effective way to counter industry’s ruthless marketing tactics. It is also fully in line with the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. The lawsuits filed by Big Tobacco look like the death throes of a desperate industry. With so many countries lined up to ride on Australia’s coattails, what we hope to see is a domino effect for the good of public health.

The case is being watched closely by several other countries who are considering similar measures to help fight tobacco.

The evidence on the positive health impact of plain packaging compiled by Australia’s High Court will benefit other countries in their efforts to develop and implement strong tobacco control measures to protect the health of their people and to stand resolute against the advances of the tobacco industry.

Tobacco use is one of the most preventable public health threats. Tobacco products will eventually kill up to half of the people who use them – that means nearly six million people die each year. If governments do not take strong action to limit exposures to tobacco, by 2030 it could kill more than eight million people each year.

The WHO Framework Convention for Tobacco Control entered into force in 2005. Parties are obliged over time to take a number of steps to reduce demand and supply for tobacco products including: protecting people from exposure to tobacco smoke, counteracting illicit trade, banning advertising, promotion and sponsorship, banning sales to minors, putting large health warnings on packages of tobacco, increasing tobacco taxes and creating a national coordinating mechanism for tobacco control. More than 170 countries are Parties to the Convention.

For further information, please contact:

Glenn Thomas
Communications Officer
WHO
Telephone: +41 22 791 3983
Mobile: +41 79 509 0677
E-mail: thomasg@who.int

Read this release at its original location >

Historic Measure Highlights Need for Stronger Action in U.S.

Yesterday, Australia’s highest court found against the tobacco industry and in favor of the government’s right to protect public health by upholding plain packaging for tobacco products. The new package requirements, which will include large graphic health warnings against a drab green background with only the name of the brand without any colors or other indicators, will go into effect on December 1^st.

Australia is the first country to introduce plain packaging, a measure recommended under the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, the world’s first public health treaty. While over 50 countries now require graphic health warnings, Australia’s plan goes a step further. Having banned all other tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship, plain packaging removes the last public space for the tobacco industry to market its deadly products. Several other countries, including New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the European Union, are considering plain packaging.

“This is a milestone in our decades-long global effort to end the tobacco epidemic,” said Laurent Huber, Executive Director of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), the nation’s oldest anti-tobacco organization. “With the injunction against FDA-mandated graphic warning labels, the U.S. has fallen far behind in efforts to protect people from addiction and early death from tobacco use.”

A federal court found that new U.S. warning labels, which depicted the harmful effects of smoking, were unconstitutional. The decision is currently under appeal.

Canada had considered plain packaging in the late 1990s, but backed off when the tobacco industry threatened to sue under the North American Free Trade Agreement. Trade agreements have increasingly been used by Big Tobacco to block or impede tobacco control measures. Australia’s victory in its high court is not the only legal barrier to be overcome – Philip Morris International has sued under an Australia-Hong Kong bilateral investment treaty, and three countries (Ukraine, Honduras and the Dominican Republic) have filed complaints with the World Trade Organization.

“The international trade legal regime was never envisioned to preclude governments from protecting the health of their people,” said Chris Bostic, Deputy Director of ASH. “The tobacco industry should not be permitted to abuse the international legal system in an effort to intimidate governments.”

In addition to Australia, the tobacco industry has launched trade lawsuits against Uruguay and Norway, among others. Earlier this year, the United States lost a trade dispute with Indonesia over its ban on flavorings, including candy flavorings clearly aimed at children.

We applaud Australia’s courage to stand up to the tobacco industry, their determination to protect the health of their citizens and be a world leader in public health.

###

“While smoking rates in the United States are lower than they have been in almost a century, the tobacco industry is wealthier than ever and has moved their marketing efforts into the developing world, cultivating new generations of customers and subjecting millions to addiction, disease and death, says Laurent Huber, executive director of ASH. “The tobacco epidemic is a global problem requiring a global solution.”

The website provides insight into how ASH is taking global action against tobacco, information on the epidemic and ways for members of the public to take action.

In addition to engaging the public to become involved in the global war on tobacco, the website provides detailed information on the organizations key program areas, that include:

• Tobacco Industry Monitoring
• Tobacco Treaty
• Tobacco & Poverty
• Tobacco & Trade
• Tobacco & Human Rights

###

The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control is a historic effort to end a public health catastrophe. The world’s first public health treaty, and the first treaty negotiated by the World Health Organization, the FCTC aims to “protect present and future generations from the devastating health, social, environmental and economic consequences of tobacco consumption and exposure to tobacco smoke.”

The FCTC addresses the tobacco epidemic in a comprehensive manner. Among its obligations:

• Barring the tobacco industry from participating in the development of public health regulations;
• Protecting people from involuntary exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke;
• Requiring industry disclosure of ingredients in tobacco products, and requiring their regulation;
• Requiring large warning labels, and banning misleading qualifiers like “light” and “low”;
• Banning all tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship;
• Fighting tobacco product smuggling; and
• Assisting farmers in transitioning to other livelihoods.

“The United States has been sitting on the sidelines of this historic and vital effort for too long, says Laurent Huber, ASH Executive Director. “Unless greater action is taken, 1 billion people will die from tobacco this century—a 10-fold increase over the 20th century toll. And in spite of all of our progress here in the U.S., 2,000 to 3,000 children begin smoking every day and more than a quarter of all deaths are attributable to tobacco.”

###