Email
Password
(Forgot Password?)
Over 50 delegates from across the region are expected to converge in Barbados for the Caribbean Sub-regional Meeting on Tobacco Surveillance and Policy Development, slated for November 16 to 20.
The meeting, a collaborative effort among the Pan-American Health Organisation - Office of Caribbean Program Coordination and the Tobacco Control Team Washington DC; the Office of Smoking and Health - Centers for Disease Control and Prevention USA; and Barbados' Health Ministry, will look at the implementation of Articles 5.3 and 13 of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC).
Article 5.3 of the FCTC addresses "Protection of Policies from Commercial and Other Vested Interests of the Tobacco Industry", while Article 13 examines "Tobacco Advertising, Promotion and Sponsorship".
The forum will also assess the use of tobacco surveillance data for the development of effective and evidence-based tobacco control policies.
Jump to full article »
Nazma muller talks to managing director of West Indian Tobacco Company Jean-Pierre du Coudray, a graduate of the University of Western Ontario, Canada, who feels that legislation for tobacco use should also protect smokers, and producers.
Q: Do you smoke?
A: Yes, but it's not because I work here. I've been smoking since I was 22. It's my choice. I was smoking for nine years, before I started working here. It's certainly not a prerequisite for working at Witco. In fact, less than 20 per cent of our employees smoke. In 2006, we discontinued a policy where every employee who smoked used to get, depending on their grade, anything between four to eight cartons of cigarettes a month. This is in line with our responsible approach-if you're an adult and you want to smoke, you have to go out there and buy your cigarettes like everybody else. . . .
Compared to the US and the UK, cigarettes are very cheap in T&T. How does Witco do it?
I wouldn't say they're cheap. They're average. In Guyana and Suriname, they're cheaper than here. What happened is we closed our factories in Jamaica, Guyana and Suriname, and that capacity was transferred to Witco. We brought in high-tech machines from Germany, so now we're much more efficient in terms of economies of scale.
Brazil's Health Minister, José Gomes Temporão, today announced the launch of the Ibero-American Tobacco Control Network (RIACT - Rede Ibero-Americana de Controle do Tabagismo in Portuguese, Red Ibero-Americana de Control del Tabaquismo in Spanish) to bring together the tobacco control authorities of (Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking) Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) with those of Spain and Portugal to cooperate, coordinate and collaborate in the implementation of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC).
A discarded cigarette butt was the likely cause of a fatal fire on a cruise ship in the Caribbean, accident investigators say.
Britain's Marine Accident Investigation Branch said in a report that the March 23 fire aboard the Star Princess was probably sparked by a cigarette that ignited combustible materials on a cabin balcony.
The blaze spread to almost 300 cabins on the Bermuda-registered ship, which was sailing from Grand Cayman to Montego Bay, Jamaica. One American passenger died and 13 other passengers were treated for smoke inhalation. The investigators' report found that the balconies' polycarbonate partitions, polyurethane deck tiles and plastic furniture were highly combustible and produced large quantities of thick black smoke when burned. The report said international sea safety regulations would be tightened in the wake of the fire.
The investigation branch said the ship's owner, Carnival Corp, was taking steps to improve safety and that the International Maritime Organisation would consider proposed amendments to an agreement governing ships at sea in December.
BRIDGETOWN, Barbados A Barbadian health group is proposing that smoking be banned at all 12 venues for next year's cricket World Cup.
National Committee for Prevention of Alcoholism and Drug Dependency director Victor Roach said he's been lobbying tournament officials for more than a year for a complete smoking ban.
"It is clearly spelt out in the terms and conditions of that there will be designated smoking areas," Roach said Thursday. "(But) we are calling for the event to be totally smoke-free."
Advocates are also urging governments to enact legislation to prohibit smoking at the tournament. . . .
Nine countries -- Jamaica, St. Kitts and Nevis, Antigua and Barbuda, St. Lucia, Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, and Guyana --will host the March 13-April 18 event.
With just one day left before the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) closes for signature, the director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), Dr. Mirta Roses, today urged PAHO's Member States to take advantage of the small window of opportunity remaining to sign the treaty.
Most Latin American countries have signed the FCTC, which was adopted unanimously by the World Health Assembly in May of 2003. However, just over half of the Caribbean PAHO Member States have done so or are scheduled to sign before the deadline at midnight on Tuesday, June 29.
Current signatories in the Caribbean are Belize, Jamaica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago. Antigua and Barbuda and Barbados are scheduled to sign the treaty today at United Nations headquarters in New York, while Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis and St. Lucia have indicated their intention to sign by tomorrow's deadline. The only Caribbean countries that have not yet committed to signing the FCTC are the Bahamas, Dominica, and Guyana.
British American Tobacco (BAT) has been accused by the Pan-American Health Organisation (PAHO) of hiring scientists throughout the Caribbean and Latin America to deceive the public about the link between second-hand smoke and lung cancer and other diseases. . .
When contacted by the Barbados Advocate, BAT referred this newspaper to its web site which stated that it has not been established that exposure to ETS genuinely increases the risk of non-smokers developing lung cancer, heart disease or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Still, the company stated that it wanted to work with Government and other interested parties to support initiatives that aim to reduce exposure to ETS. . .
One of the other findings of the report was that BAT proposed seminars and individual journalist briefings in the English-speaking Caribbean, including Barbados, with the goal of tilting journalists' opinion in favour of the industry. . .
Research by this newspaper revealed that BAT came under fire during that last media forum in 2000
Several transnational tobacco companies hired scientists throughout Latin America and the Caribbean to deceive the public about the link between secondhand smoke and lung cancer and other serious diseases, according to a report released this week by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), a regional office of the World Health Organization.
But the companies neglected to inform the public about their connection with the scientists. They instead used consultants who agreed to portray themselves as independent, objective researchers while parroting the views of the tobacco industry in their liaisons with the media and various government officials, the report indicates.
In fact, tobacco executives circulated a memo that stated: "I cannot stress strongly enough the absolute necessity for the industry to have no direct contact with these scientists that are part of the program...All contact, as previously explained, must be carried out through (a Washington, DC-based law firm)."
This is just one of the components of the tobacco industry's deceptive campaigns that were carried out in Latin America and the Caribbean over the last decade, according to PAHO's "Profits Over People" report.
It is not constructive to dwell on events that (occurred) several years ago. It is more productive to focus on what we can and should be doing to address society's legitimate concerns about tobacco. Our approach today is to support sensible government regulations.Jayme Fowler, Philip Morris' communications director for Latin America, in response to the PAHO report "Profits over People.
We are and always have been in favor of sensible tobacco regulation . . . [T]here is no convincing evidence that the substance of any work or the opinion of any doctor or scientist has been altered or affected by tobacco industry influenceUnidentified BAT spokesperson, in response to the PAHO report "Profits over People.
This report shows that transnational tobacco companies have engaged in active, comprehensive campaigns of deception over the last decade in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) regarding the harmful effects of second-hand smoke and the nature of tobacco company marketing activities. These public relations campaigns were primarily designed to delay or avoid tobacco marketing restrictions, tax increases and restrictions on public and workplace smoking.
The report is the result of over a year of investigation of more than 10,000 pages of internal tobacco company documents. The documents are primarily from Philip Morris and British American Tobacco, who together have most of the market share in LAC, and were obtained through the Internet and through the Guildford depository in the United Kingdom. The report shows that the tobacco companies:
designed “youth smoking prevention” campaigns and programs primarily as public relations exercises aimed at deterring meaningful regulation of tobacco marketing;