More curbs on tobacco lobbying are needed

The new Global Tobacco Industry Interference Index 2020 shows aggressive tobacco industry lobbying in 2019 and exploitation of the COVID-19 pandemic this year.

The report was released by global tobacco industry watchdog Stopping Tobacco Organizations and Products. It measures tobacco industry influence: The more influence the tobacco industry has, the less governments are able to reduce the 8 million deaths worldwide caused by tobacco each year. Moreover, reports have clarified that smoking increases suffering and risks of dying from COVID-19.

Asia performs at the top of all three categories in the report－the best-performing government in resisting the tobacco industry (Brunei), the worst (Japan), and the most improved (Pakistan).

There were over 100 million deaths from tobacco in the last century. It is time to hold the tobacco industry to account for harm, deaths and economic losses from tobacco. Yet this new research from 57 countries covering 80 percent of the world population reveals governments are not doing enough to protect public health from industry influence.

The World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control has been ratified by all governments in the Western Pacific and China, including its Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions. An article in the treaty specifically states that governments shall protect their public health policies from commercial and other vested interests of the tobacco industry, which applies to the civil service, elected legislators and the judiciary.

Across regions, the tobacco industry spends only a small fraction of its profits on corporate social responsibility initiatives, from which it gains immense exposure and credibility.

Patterns revealed in the new report show how such initiatives created access to officials and a false perception of tobacco companies as responsible actors; how public officials were offered jobs in the tobacco industry and vice versa, creating potential conflicts of interest; and how tobacco companies exploited a lack of transparency and coordination across government agencies to gain access.

The index details dozens of specific instances in which governments let their guard down and the tobacco industry took advantage, for example in Bangladesh, Indonesia and Japan.

Smokers who contract COVID-19 have almost three times the risk of dying. Yet the tobacco industry is exploiting the pandemic by stepping up efforts to lobby governments through departments of finance, customs and trade.

The tobacco industry has even found ways to aggressively market different types of novel tobacco products, such as electronic cigarettes and heated tobacco products such as IQOS(which consists of a charger around the size of a mobile phone and a holder that looks like a pen). They are addictive and harmful yet are being presented as a solution to the tobacco epidemic the industry itself created.

At the same time, the industry used donations to promote itself as a partner to governments fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. Examples in Asia include British American Tobacco providing personal protective equipment to public hospitals. Government departments wrote to various agencies asking them to cooperate with BAT and Japan Tobacco International during the COVID-19 shutdown.

In the Philippines, Philip Morris Fortune Tobacco Corp donated medical equipment. In Indonesia, the group's local subsidiary, PT HM Sampoerna Tbk, used donations as opportunities for marketing and media coverage, requesting policy changes such as seeking relaxation of restrictions on outdoor tobacco advertising.

The report offers solutions, recommending a menu of actions governments can take to avoid conflicts of interest: adopting measures to protect public officials from industry influence and to avoid shadowy dialogues; preventing tobacco industry participation in policy; avoiding unnecessary interactions with the tobacco industry and ensuring transparency of meetings that do occur; de-normalizing the industry's so-called corporate social responsibility activities and implementing transparency measures by making the industry disclose its marketing, lobbying and philanthropic activities; and, finally, stopping benefits and incentives for the tobacco industry.

More can and should be done by all governments across the Asia-Pacific to counter the tobacco industry's meddling, and to protect children from these deadly and addictive products.

Just as malaria will not be reduced until the vector－the mosquito－is eliminated, the tobacco epidemic will never be resolved until the tobacco industry is controlled.

The tobacco industry will not stop interfering. Civil society can expose and counter tobacco industry interference, but it is in the hands of governments to halt it altogether.

The author is director of the Asian Consultancy on Tobacco Control based in Hong Kong. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.