Global war on smoking intensifies
Ex New York mayor donates R237m to help fight body funded by tobacco giant
THE war is on between former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg and South Africa’s Derek Yach over efforts to stop a billion people smoking and avoid millions of preventable deaths.
As the world’s largest tobacco control conference kicked off in Africa for the first time yesterday‚ Bloomberg pledged $20-million (R237-million) to fight against tobacco companies and Yach’s organisation‚ which is funded by a tobacco company.
Bloomberg’s donation is a direct response to Yach’s new organisation‚ Foundation for a Smoke-Free World‚ that is funded by a billiondollar donation from Phillip Morris International cigarette company‚ the maker of Marlboro cigarettes.
Foundation for a SmokeFree World aims to help people quit smoking or switch to vaping‚ which it says is a healthier alternative to cigarettes.
But Bloomberg and the World Health Organisation have warned scientists to have nothing to do with an organisation that takes money from a cigarette company.
Bloomberg’s donation‚ announced yesterday morning‚ has been used to set up a new global organisation‚ Stopping Tobacco Organisations and Products (STOP)‚ that will “aggressively monitor deceptive tobacco industry tactics and practices to undermine efforts to stop smoking”.
Bloomberg says he does not trust cigarette companies, the science they produce or NGOs they fund.
“For decades‚ tobacco giants have tried to deceive the public with duplicitous tactics‚” he said in a media release.
Bloomberg said the organisation “Foundation for a Smoke-Free World” was seen as a thinly veiled effort to legitimise the tobacco industry and allow it access to governments’ policy-making table.
Yach said his foundation was independent of the billion dollars in funding from Phillip Morris International and had been set up independently under US law.
He said millions of lives could be saved if smokers switched to e-cigarettes.
But Bloomberg hit back and accused the tobacco industry of pushing alternative products‚ such as heat-not-burn and e-cigarettes‚ saying there was not enough science to support vaping as a way to quit smoking.
“Tobacco-industry-funded research has repeatedly been a smokescreen for behaviour that has led to worse outcomes for smokers‚” read a media release from STOP.
Bloomberg said: “Over the last decade tobacco control measures [such as sin taxes and advertising bans] have saved nearly 35 million lives‚ but as more cities and countries take action‚ the tobacco industry is pushing to find new users‚ particularly young people.”
He suggested e-cigarettes were being used by the industry to attract more smokers.
WHO director-general Dr Tedros Adhanom‚ also in Cape Town for the World Conference on Tobacco or Health‚ said: “STOP is a warning call to Big Tobacco that they are on notice.
“The World Health Organisation and our partners will not accept efforts to undermine the huge successes in tobacco control that we have achieved over the past few decades. There is no going back.”
The World Conference on Tobacco or Health is bringing 2 000 global scientists and policy makers together to work out ways to stop the tobacco industry from expanding. – TimesLIVE