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• Developing countries vow to shut door on Big Tobacco  

undred sixty nations, many of them in the developing world, have vowed to stand up to the tobacco industry and its efforts to water down antitobacco laws. . . .

This weekend, at a meeting in Durban, South Africa, countries took that treaty a step further by agreeing that tobacco lobbyists must be prevented from interfering with healthcare policy.

"This was a big step," says Kathy Mulvey, international policy director for Corporate Accountability International, based in Boston. "The anchor principle of this meeting was that there is a fundamental conflict between tobacco industry interests and public health interests. These guidelines will help advocates and public officials begin to slam the door on tobacco industry tactics, and focus on implementing the treaty's lifesaving measures."

Times have been hard for the tobacco industry in the developed world, as smoking diminishes in Europe and North America – evidence that education on tobacco's harms are starting to pay off. But as the tobacco industry shifts its attentions farther south to Africa, Latin America, and Asia – betting that weaker governments or corrupt officials will smooth the path for their product to be sold – it has met surprising resistance from individual nations and citizens groups who refuse to allow their countries to be dumping grounds for what has been called the world's largest preventable epidemic.

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