HEADLINES

• The Lancet: Tobacco companies expand their epidemic of death
• Letter from the National Federation of Retail Newsagents
• USA: Adolescents' favourite television shows loaded with smoking imagery
• USA: Boston considering a smoking ban in parks and on beaches
• Australia: Judge banned from tobacco case
• Hungary: Cancer-related mortality rate poorest in Europe

• The Lancet: Tobacco companies expand their epidemic of death

  Imperial Tobacco's share prices rose steeply after it reported an increase in sales of cigarettes to Africa and the Middle East last week.  Philip Morris International will report their 2010 full-year results on 10 February and it's expected they will make much of their claim to sell their products in 160 countries worldwide.

  For companies like Imperial Tobacco and Philip Morris - selling, addicting, and killing, surely the most cruel and corrupt business model human beings could have invented - it is not surprising that they see "many opportunities for us to develop our business" in vulnerable low-income and middle-income countries. Without a trace of irony or shame, Imperial's management team reported to investors last week that the company won a Gold Award rating in a 2009 corporate responsibility index.

  Yet tobacco executives know they are peddling death. If one tries to view Imperial's investor presentation, several slides are now blank. Why? Imperial says “because we do not feature tobacco product imagery on our website”.

  While tobacco companies such as Philip Morris and Imperial Tobacco spread their killing fields in far away places, they try to sanitise their “imagery” for investors. We should not pick on Philip Morris and Imperial Tobacco. The big five tobacco manufacturers also include British American Tobacco, Japan Tobacco, and Altria. BAT describes the cigarette industry as “recession resistant”. It is also morally repugnant.

  Source: The Lancet, 10 February 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/fXuRhx

• Letter from the National Federation of Retail Newsagents

  A letter from the National Federation of Retail Newsagents which is published in today's Telegrah argues that countries such a Ireland and Canada, which have had tobacco display bans for some time, have failed to see a reduction in levels of youth smoking.

  Source: The Telegraph, 10 February 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/gh0bag

• USA: Adolescents' favourite television shows loaded with smoking imagery

  A report published in the journal Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine shows high numbers of tobacco images in some of the highest-rated adolescent television shows.

  The study found that over a three-month period 940,000 youths aged 12 to 17 were exposed to smoking images while watching eight television shows, including The Simpsons, American Dad, America's Next Top Model, and Family Guy.

  Source: Media Post, 07 February 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/g4yWeC

• USA: Boston considering a smoking ban in parks and on beaches

  Boston is considering a proposal that would see large parts of the city go smokefree, just weeks after New York passed a bill to ban smoking in parks and beaches.

  Councillors Salvatore LaMattina and Felix Arroyo, who have been working with Boston’s asthma task force, plan to reveal their proposal at a city council meeting.

  Mr LaMattina said, "My concern is secondhand smoke. I want to be sure that when people go to a park or a beach or public space, that is a smokefree environment."

  Source: Daily Mail , 09 February 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/gAjODn

• Australia: Judge banned from tobacco case

  A New South Wales judge has been banned by the High Court from presiding over future hearings involving British American Tobacco (BAT), on the grounds of bias.

  When Justice Jim Curtis presided over a case involving BAT and Brambles in 2006, he found the tobacco company had secretly destroyed documents that linked its products to lung cancer.

  After the finding, BAT wanted Judge Curtis disqualified from hearing a separate case against the company.

  Source: ABC News, 09 February 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/hmkQbP

• Hungary: Cancer-related mortality rate poorest in Europe

  Data, released by the World Health Organisation (WHO) on World Cancer Day shows that Hungary has the poorest cancer related morality rate within Europe.

  It said the major cause of these deaths is smoking.

  The WHO said 458 people out of 100,000 die of cancer per year in Hungary, compared with a rate of 347 cancer deaths per 100,000 in Russia and Ukraine.

  Source: Caboodle, 07 February 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/eYRz2n