Last week South Africa became the first country to sign a new international treaty aimed at combating tobacco smuggling. Minister of Health, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, signed the Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products at a ceremony held at the WHO headquarters in Geneva on Thursday. Eleven other countries
SMOKING MAY be the world’s greatest global health threat. It kills nearly 6 million people a year around the world — more than HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria combined. The United States has done an admirable job of combating this threat within its own borders. But Washington has done embarrassingly little
Today a new landmark in global health knowledge and evidence was released. After five years and the collaboration of 500 scientists and researchers from around the world, the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010 (GBD 2010) https://www.thelancet.com/themed/global-burden-of-disease has been published in The Lancet. Thanks to dramatic achievements in health over
Talks on a tobacco exception in a free trade agreement between the United States and ten other countries in the Asia-Pacific region – the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) – became the subject of many unanswered questions during the stakeholder briefing with chief negotiators at Sky City on Friday, 7 Dec
The 15th negotiating round of the ongoing TransPacific Partnership (TPP) free trade agreement will end tomorrow in Auckland, New Zealand. This marks the fourth round that U.S. negotiators have failed to “table” (formally propose) a special exception protecting governments’ right to legislate on tobacco, which they promised back in May.
Virginia’s ban on smoking in restaurants and public buildings just passed the three-year mark, and a Democratic lawmaker is now looking to expand the ban to some cars. Del. Joe Morrissey, D-Highland Springs, filed a bill for the General Assembly session next month that would prohibit smoking in any vehicle
Women who smoke while pregnant can triple the chances of their child succumbing to a major cause of meningitis, according to new research. Several studies have already suggested a link between passive smoking and meningococcal disease. To investigate the association, scientists at the UK Centre for Tobacco Studies carried out
Study: You’ll Likely Feel Worse After Drinking if You’ve Been Smoking, Too For smokers, it may seem only natural to light up while imbibing at this month’s holiday parties. But a new report published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs suggests that those who smoke cigarettes on
The discussion about New Zealand’s proposed law on plain packaging for cigarettes and other tobacco products, largely followed the earlier debates on Australia’s law. New Zealand notified its intention to introduce the legislation in documentG/TBT/N/NZL/62, which includes a link to its health ministry for further information. The proposal was agreed
A letter from TPP Medical Student Association Presidents including the International Federation of Medical Students Associations (IFMSA) went out to TPP negotiators asking for access to the negotiating text as well as revisions or removal of provisions that threaten public health including tobacco. Stating that “Tobacco alone is responsible for
A federal appeals court on Wednesday rejected the government’s request for the full court to hear a case on the Food and Drug Administration’s graphic tobacco warning labels, setting up a potential Supreme Court showdown with Big Tobacco. But first, the government has to decide whether it wants to defend
Tobacco giant, Philip-Morris, has recently bought actions under investor-State arbitration mechanisms in investment treaties to challenge laws limiting (in Uruguay) or prohibiting (in Australia) the display of its trademarks in tobacco packaging. This has caused the Australian government to take a strong stance against any investor-State arbitration provisions in free
Andriy Skipalskyi was feeling proud, even triumphant, when he arrived last March at the World Conference on Tobacco or Health in Singapore. Ukraine’s parliament had just voted to approve a public smoking ban, and its president had just signed a bill to outlaw tobacco advertising and promotion. These were revolutionary
FairWarning uncovers more evidence on how the tobacco industry abuses trade laws to block anti-tobacco measures! Read the full article here> (broken link removed February 2023, redirect here)
A Quebec judge has agreed to hear the testimony of a prominent witness in a massive class-action lawsuit against Big Tobacco, a man the industry has labelled as biased and ill-informed. Robert Proctor is a historian from California’s Stanford University who has published extensively on the tobacco industry in books
Although the number of adult smokers in the United States declined slightly between 2005 and 2011, there was no significant change between 2010 and 2011, health officials said Thursday. Smoking dipped from 20.9 percent to 19.3 percent of the U.S. population between 2005 and 2011, but in the last year
Ventilation at five major U.S. airports with designated smoking areas does not protect passengers from the health risks of secondhand smoke, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns Tuesday. The CDC, in its first study comparing air quality at airports with and without smoke-fee policies, finds that pollution levels
SEOUL: More than 170 countries Monday adopted what World Health Organisation (WHO) chief Margaret Chan called a “game-changing” global pact to combat the illegal tobacco trade. The treaty envisages an international tracking system which aims to halt the smuggling and counterfeiting of tobacco products — a trade which accounts for
Dr Margaret Chan Director-General of the World Health Organization Address to the Fifth Session of the Conference of the Parties to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control Seoul, Republic of Korea 12 November 2012 Excellencies, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted to address this fifth session of
THE NSW government is considering abandoning tobacco investments after a backlash from health experts and anti-smoking campaigners. It has for the first time admitted to having nearly $30 million invested in tobacco companies. The figures were provided in an answer to a budget estimates question asked by the Greens NSW
Two of the largest foreign-owned tobacco companies have asked the Ontario’s top court to discharge a $50-billion lawsuit instigated against them by the provincial government. According to the lawyers of British American Tobacco and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, they are going to put up a case that their respective companies
A subsidiary of Reynolds American Inc. is suing an Alabama electronic-cigarette retailer, accusing the company of trademark infringement of Reynolds’ Camel and Winston brands, and unfair and deceptive trade practices. Reynolds Innovations Inc. filed the lawsuit Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of N.C. The case
Nearly two-thirds of women of reproductive age in China are exposed to second-hand tobacco smoke at home and over half are exposed in the workplace, which raises the risk of complications in pregnancy, including stillbirths and infant death. The findings, released by the World Health Organisation on Tuesday, are from
The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) is the world’s first global public health treaty. It is also the first treaty negotiated under the auspices of the World Health Organization (WHO) and is one of the most widely adopted treaties in the United Nations system. The treaty entered into force
The more stringent the laws, the better the health benefits, American researchers found Hospital admissions for heart attacks fell by 15%, strokes by 16% and those for respiratory diseases such as asthma by 24% Smoking bans dramatically reduce the number of people hospitalised for heart attacks, stroke and respiratory diseases
