Jump to full article: University of California at San Francisco (UCSF), 2006-04-19
Author: Source: Aria Pearson
Intro: But what’s happening in the rest of the world? Is anti-tobacco litigation proving effective elsewhere? While there has been increasing success in some parts of the world, Latin America lags behind.
Eliseo Pérez-Stable, MD, a professor of medicine and director of the Medical Effectiveness Research Center for Diverse Populations at UCSF, decided to find out why. In a study published in a recent issue of the journal Tobacco Control, he and his colleagues looked at the state of tobacco litigation in Argentina, a country with one of the highest smoking rates in Latin America.
Through a systematic search of library and online documents, the team discovered 15 litigation cases in Argentina between 1978 and 2002, in which individuals attempted to sue multinational tobacco companies. All of them failed. Pérez-Stable hopes to help local health advocates and lawyers understand why litigation is not working in Argentina, so they may improve their strategies for the future.
The legal system in Argentina poses the first major barrier to anti-tobacco litigation. . . .
he thinks there is hope for increasing tobacco control policies and reducing smoking rates.
To that end, Pérez-Stable is overseeing a long-term study of smoking habits in children age 13 to 15 in Argentina. He intends to learn how local attitudes and feelings of cultural identity effect smoking behavior in adolescents. He says education campaigns aimed at young adults — such as the advertisements by thetruth.com in the United States – have promise in Argentina. But success lies in tailoring them to the local culture.
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