Tobacco Documents Online

BRITISH AMERICAN TOBACCO Copy Request Form Request Number: 20 Organization: Physicians for a smoke free Canada I Request Details Request Date: ..... ." ..... .~ ......... .~...~ .......................... • oee • File Number: .... ~:~.~...~.. ....... Box Number: ...[.~..~.~ ......... Page Range: First Page Last Page Requested By: (Print Name). s Details below will be filled in by Depository Staff Only II Copy Details Copied By: .... ~ .... ~~Z.... ................ • . .. Date: ...~.~../.~.~./~... ............ Time: ..././.'..~..~....~. ....... Copy Checked By: ......... • ooeoao.aetemaoleoooo• •eooeooDoooeoeeo,Jmoeoo *eee Date: ............................... .. ... Time: ..................... .. ........ IlI Delivery Details Checked By: .................... ........... . .... Date: ................... Sent By: ............... Date: .................... iooooemel..*.,.o.oQ..Jaoo .I • BATCo document for PFSFC 1 March 1999

°° C . THE TOBACCO INDUSTRY'S POSITION ON PROPOSED NEW ROTATING HEALTH WARNINGS ON TOBACCO PRODOCTS AND ADVERTISING TOBACCO INSTITUTE OF AUSTRALIA 7 June 1985 t~ ko c~ BATCo document for PFSFC 1 March 1999

TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ..................................... (i) INTRODUCTION ............................................ 1 COMMENTS ON WORDING OF WARNINGS ......................... 1 COMMERCIAL CONSEQUENCES ................................. 7 C IMPLICATIONS FOR ADVERTISING ........................... 12 CREDIBILITY OF GOVERNMENTS TAKING SUCH ACTION .......... 15 CONCLUSION ............................................. 17 REFERENCES ............................................. 19 ( 4~ "O "W BATCo document for PFSFC 1 March 1999

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY (i) The tobacco industry makes the strongest possible objection to the proposed new rotating health warnings on tobacco products and advertising, on the following grounds: Australian Health Ministers have presented the industry with no justification for the proposed change. The proposed warnings go well beyond the existing state of medical and scientific knowledge and far exceed warnings used anywhere else in the world. Those proposing the warnings have refused to take responsibility for them by not accepting attribution. In no democratic country in the world has a warning relating to smoking, that makes a specific charge, been required by law without those making the statement or charge accepting responsibility for it. The warnings, if allowed to stand unqualified and without attribution, would by government edict and not by the due process of science find the cause of cancer and heart disease and would not contribute to the advancement of knowledge. The requirement that 20 percent of the area of the front and back panels of tobacco packs be taken up with mandatory health warnings amounts to the commandeering of the tobacco companies' most valuable commercial property - their brand designs - with the following implications: It will destroy or degrade pack designs, brand identities and brand trademarks. It will cause serious commercial disruption of the competitive market for tobacco products in an arbitrary and random way. This random transfer of market share will affect the viability of some competing companies much more severely than others, with a resulting significant impact on employment. It will remove from Australian tobacco manufacturers and established importers their current protection provided by the established strength of their brands with Australian consumers, thereby exporting jobs, the purchase of raw materials and investment overseas to the detriment of the domestic tobacco industry. Cw ~(.29 QD BATCo document for PFSFC 1 March 1999

(ii) It will make potential investors think twice about the security of their investment in Australia. The requirement that 20 percent of tobacco advertising space be devoted to health warnings amounts to a de facto advertising ban and will have economically detrimental effects on the media and advertising industries and make sponsorship of sporting and cultural events by tobacco companies untenable. The likely effects of a de facto ban on advertising would be : Withdrawal of the estimated $15 million annual contribution by tobacco companies to sports sponsorship. Denial of advertising revenue of about $40 million to Australian newspapers, magazines, periodicals, cinemas and outdoor contractors. Removal of up to $20 million currently spent on advertising production and on sales and merchandising materials. The loss of an estimated 40 percent of the revenue of the outdoor advertising industry which employs about 2,700 people. Many of these jobs would have to go. Withdrawal of an estimated 25 percent of cinema advertising revenue, placing marginal suburban and drive-in cinemas at greater risk. Advertisers should not have to: make statements which negate their advertising message; make statements with which they fundamentally disagree and which cannot be supported by scientific research; libel their product and at the same time bear the cost of displaying that libel. Such action is hypocritical when it is considered that at the same time as requiring such warnings governments will continue to collect $1.2 billion in Federal and State taxes. c~ ko BATCo document for PFSFC 1 March 1999

-i- INTRODUCTION On May 16 1985 the Australian Health Ministers' Conference decided on a new system of health warnings for cigarettes and other tobacco products and advertising of these products, to commence on July 1 1986.1 The proposed new warnings are: .i. 2. 3. 4. "Smoking causes lung cancer and heart disease". "Smoking damages your lungs". "Smoking is addictive". "Smoking kills" They propose that these warnings be used in rotation and take up 20 percent of the major faces of cigarette packs and 20 percent of advertisement space. The tobacco industry makes the strongest possible objections - not only to the proposed warnings but also to the proposed methods of displaying them. COMMENTS ON WORDING OF WARNINGS The tobacco industry strongly objects to the proposals for the following reasons: Warninu i: "Smoking causes luna cancer and heart disease" Warning 2: "Smoking damaaes your lunas" These warnings make statements which go beyond the epidemiological evidence. The actual causes of the diseases referred to are still unknown, despite the worldwide medical and experimental research C~ kO BATCo document for PFSFC 1 March 1999

-2- programmes conducted for over 30 years to find their causes. To assume that smoking causes these diseases is to turn hypothesis into fact, thereby also ignoring or discounting the other factors that epidemiological studies have shown to be associated with the same diseases. < The assumption that smoking causes these diseases also ignores or discounts the lack of evidence as to how smoke or smoking is supposed to cause the physiological changes in the onset of these diseases, let alone how this is done to the exclusion of the other factors shown to be associated with them. It is a basic rule of science that a statistical correlation, no matter how strong or consistent, does not constitute proof of causal relationship in an association. Also ignored by those who propose these new warnings is the fact that the basic epidemiological studies, undertaken in the United States and the United Kingdom by Doll and Hill2, Hammond and Horn3, Dorn et al4, Kahn et al5 and other studies and upon which the causal hypothesis is based, have been criticised by eminent statisticians such as Sir Ronald Fisher6, Professor Theodor Sterling7, Professor Joseph Berkson8 Professor Emeritus Eleanor MacDonald9 and Professor Philip ButchI0 to name a few. Their criticisms, as published in the scientific literature, are that: the populations concerned were not randomly selected; the populations studied were not representative of their national population, let alone those of other countries; C~ kO ~n BATCo document for PFSFC 1 March 1999

-3- the participants were 'self-selected' as either smokers, ex-smokers or non-smokers and it has been shown that there are different personality traits between these types which can bias a statistical analysis as can 'self-selection'; and, in some studies, the interviewers were not experienced. More recent epidemiological studies have shown that the correlation between smoking and the causation of lung cancer, heart disease and emphysema diminishes er becomes insignificant when other factors, including lifestyle, workplace and residential pollution, hereditary and genetic factors, were measured.II Apart from these epidemiological findings it is accepted by scientists that one of the steps towards determining whether or not a statistical correlation shows a cause and effect is by experiments with animals. Over the last 20 years there has not been one experiment with animals that was scientifically acceptable, or that produced the same results when repeated, that has shown smoking to cause either lung cancer, heart disease or emphysema. Experiments, using the same animal models, have produced lung cancer or heart disease or emphysema with other chemicals or product~ but have not produced these diseases with whole cigarette smoke. In some experiments the smoking animals contracted less disease and lived longer than the non-smoking animals.12 In the face oE all this evidence and the lack oE any experimental or medical evidenc_~ to show the mechanisms of ~he onset of these diseases, to sinule O L~4 LJn ~O BATCo document for PFSFC 1 March 1999

-4- C . out cigarette smoking as the only known cause is wrong. Therefore the warnings proposed cannot be substantiated. Warnina 3: "Smokinq is addictive" This warning simply does not reflect the current scientific literature. There are those who support the addiction theory, but there are also those of equal professional standing who say that smoking is only a learned habit. When a similar warning, albeit attributed to the US Surgeon General, was proposed last year in the U.S. it was withdrawn. In the USA alone it is said that 35 million people have quit smoking over the last 20 years, almost all without any outside assistance. Claims that smoking is "as addictive as heroin" are highly mischievous and based on emotionalism. The UK Office of Population, Censuses and Surveys has characterised smoking as a learned dependence.13 The U.S. Surgeon General in his 1982 report recognised that 95 percent of Americans quit smoking without the aid of an organised smoking cessation 14 programme. This warning cannot be substantiated. Warnina 4: "Smokinq kills" This statement is absolute and says everyone who smokes will die as a result of their smoking. This is patently untrue. Statistics published by the Commonwealth Department of Health show quite clearly that the vast majority of smokers do not die of the 15 diseases which are said to be related to smoking. O ---4 ~D BATCo document for PFSFC 1 March 1999

-5- Again, for all the reasons given before, this statement not only takes an assumption and makes it a fact but does so in a totally emotional manner that, at the least, can only be designed to scare and frighten and turn one group of the community against another, one member of a family against another. There is even the inference that the health of the non-smoker is affected by so-called passive and involuntary smoking. This, however, is also insupportable as has been demonstrated in the past two years with three international reviews of the scientific data on "passive smoking".16 For example, a meeting of some of the world's top scientists in this field in Vienna in 1984 concluded: "Should lawmakers wish to take legislative measures with regard to passive smoking they will for the present not be able to base their efforts on a demonstrated health hazard from passive smoking".17 No doubt in defence of the claim "Smoking Kills" it will be argued that smoking is the 'leading cause of premature death in this country' as is often alleged by health authorities. If so, why is it that the average age of death from the diseases allegedly associated with smoking is significantly higher than the average for all other causes even after taking account of perinatal death and accidental death, as demonstrated by the graphs attached, and as stated by the government in the Senate on 6 March 1984?18 Similarly, in this regard, why is it that smokers and non-smokers alike contract these diseases in their older age? This warning is alarmist and emotive and simply not true. ! J C:) L~4 BATCo document for PFSFC 1 March 1999