WHO backs Thailand on bigger health warning signs

[webfact]

WHO backs Thailand on bigger health warning signs
By English News



BANGKOK, Sept 25 – The World Health Organisation (WHO) has thrown its full support to Thailand’s move to print larger health warning messages, covering 85 per cent of a cigarette packet, Public Health Minister Pradit Sintawanarong said today.

Spearheaded by the Public Health Ministry, the move is pending a decision by the Supreme Administrative Court following a successful injunction by tobacco giant Philip Morris and Japan Tobacco International.

Dr Pradit said Thailand would be the first country in the world requiring warnings on 85 per cent of a cigarette packet, if it wins the case in court.

WHO said the Thai government’s move was in accord with the WHO’s principle of protecting non smokers and increasing the size of health warning messages from the present 55 per cent to 85 per cent.

Thai legal experts from Chulalongkorn and Thammasat universities will fight the case for the Public Health Ministry, said Dr Pradit. (MCOT online news)


-- TNA 2013-09-25

[jbrain]

WHO cares .

[Thai at Heart]

WHO backs Thailand on bigger health warning signs

By English News

BANGKOK, Sept 25 The World Health Organisation (WHO) has thrown its full support to Thailands move to print larger health warning messages, covering 85 per cent of a cigarette packet, Public Health Minister Pradit Sintawanarong said today.

Spearheaded by the Public Health Ministry, the move is pending a decision by the Supreme Administrative Court following a successful injunction by tobacco giant Philip Morris and Japan Tobacco International.

Dr Pradit said Thailand would be the first country in the world requiring warnings on 85 per cent of a cigarette packet, if it wins the case in court.

WHO said the Thai governments move was in accord with the WHOs principle of protecting non smokers and increasing the size of health warning messages from the present 55 per cent to 85 per cent.

Thai legal experts from Chulalongkorn and Thammasat universities will fight the case for the Public Health Ministry, said Dr Pradit. (MCOT online news)

-- TNA 2013-09-25

Huh? No blurring out the packs? Great advertising....

[MESmith]

What about warning labels covering 85% of sugary sodas?

[Crazy chef 1]

they can cover them to 100% so long i can identify my favorite brand!

[clockman]

Window dressing!

[Eddy B]

Maybe they should do the same with road signs in Thailand. Maybe make them so big so that they will possible be able to understand them

[Rionoir]

haha Yea, that's certainly the problem... people obviously couldn't see the current warnings/graphic images on the packs because they are too small. /facepalm

[spirit47]

WHO - Puppet show

Boring about hunting Smokers, they know what coming out of the exhaust from trucks and factorys...

They know, in 10 years everybody will get a cancer, but not from smoking.

The air, the food, the water, everything we need for life is full of ugly staff.

[jaltsc]

This being Thailand, I can see some kid just asking for "The pack with the guy with the black lungs" and having his friend say: "The one with half of the guy's jaw missing is a lot cooler". Of course the guy behind the counter ignores the fact that both kids are under age and sells them the packs anyway.

[nisakiman]

So first they put written warnings on packs, and it had no effect whatsoever on either smoking rates or take-up.

Then it was more of the same, but this time with grotesque photoshopped medico-porn images. And it had no effect whatsoever on either smoking rates or take-up.

And now they want even bigger photoshopped medico-porn images. And that will have absolutely no impact, either. Which anyone with half a brain would anticipate, given the abject failure of previous efforts.

So then they'll say: "I know! Here's a great idea! Let's force the tobacco companies to have plain packs with really big photoshopped medico-porn plastered all over them!"

Oh, the Australians have already done that, haven't they... I bet that little bit of legislation brought a smile to the faces of the Chinese counterfeiters. "Break out the champagne, boys, business is about to boom!"

The anti-tobacco fanatics have no imagination at all. They haven't yet realised that when you lie and exaggerate on a regular basis, like the boy who cried wolf, eventually people stop listening.

Of course the WHO is encouraging the uglification. The organisation is packed with swivel-eyed anti-smoking fanatics, financed to a large part by the big three pharmaceutical companies, who just so happen to have a multi-billion nicotine patch / gum industry riding on the back of smoking bans. Not to mention the even bigger profits they rake in from Altzheimer's and Parkinson's drugs, two diseases that smokers rarely suffer from*. Force 'em to quit, and then clean up when they get one of those degenerative diseases. Nice little scam. No wonder they've poured hundreds of millions into supporting anti-smoking organisations.

*

http://news.sciencemag.org/health/2000/04/parkinsons-inhibitor-fingered-tobacco

http://www.med.monash.edu.au/pharmacology/research/groups/loiacono.html

In fact I posted a comment a week or two ago when this proposal for bigger gross images was first mooted, which I'll copy and paste here, as it remains relevant, and I can't be bothered to re-hash it.

The gross medico-porn has been forced onto cigarette packets in various countries for years now, and there is no evidence that it has had any effect whatsoever either in reducing smoking rates or in reducing take-up rates. Are the Tobacco Control Industry unaware of this fact?

Of course they are not unaware. Dishonesty has been their modus operandi for the past several decades. Their campaign against smoking has not, and never has had anything to do with health, but is based in an ideological hatred of smokers and smoking, and they work with the ethos "the end justifies the means". That is why, despite all the evidence to the contrary, they still plug the 'Second-Hand Smoke is Harmful" myth. And they have been very successful, too. They have managed to get smoking banned just about everywhere by manipulating figures and omitting inconvenient facts and then issuing press releases to a gullible and unquestioning media, who then print verbatim the misinformation they've been fed. And they will adopt the same tactics with graphic images and plain packaging. Expect a blitz of press releases from them lauding the huge success (regardless of the lack of evidence) of plain packaging in Australia in the near future.

But the whole argument over plain packaging / gross images is merely inconsequential posturing on the part of its proponents. They all know (at least, the movers and shakers in Tobacco Control know, perhaps not the indoctrinated drones) that it's all just a part of the process of denormalising smoking and smokers. The vast majority of anti-smoking propaganda is based on a tissue of half-lies and cherry-picked and manipulated statistics; misleading soundbites and appeals to baser emotions. "Think of the children" is the rallying cry.

The Tobacco Control Industry conveniently fails to mention that in the 1998 WHO study by Boffetta et al into the effects of passive smoking , they found absolutely no statistically significant effect on those exposed to SHS, apart from in one area, and that was that children who were brought up in a home where one or both parents smoked were actually 22% LESS LIKELY to develop lung cancer in later life. Yes, that's right, 22% LESS likely. And just to spell that out, it means that being exposed to SHS has a PROTECTIVE effect for children. So much for the 'dangers' of SHS. And so much for "Think of the children".

(Boffetta P et al. "Multicenter case-control studyof exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and lung cancer in Europe," 'Journal of the National Cancer Institute ', October 7, 1998, Vol. 90. Issue 19, pp, 1440-1450.)

Of course, you won't find any trace of that on the ASH website, and obviously the WHO tried to bury the report, because it didn't fit the agenda, but the Sunday Telegraph unearthed it, and published on March 8 1998. Cue much consternation from the Tobacco Control lobby! The damage limitation machine was swung into action, and the report was re-interred.

As everybody who takes an interest in these matters knows. It's not about the children, and it's not about health. It's about the uglification of anything and everything to do with smoking, because Tobacco Control hate it. Simple as that.

And no, I don't work for Big Tobacco.

[MAJIC]

I'm not being defeatist on increasing the size of health warnings,but the plain facts are:people get immune to this type of warning,whatever the size. Something radical is needed,like making the Tobacco companies pay for the health of all those that have polluted bodies,and are facing death from their filthy product,and please no usual "well you had a choice,it's your own fault" because then you would have to argue about the Tobacco companies that lured people into smoking. Such as flooding poor african countries with cartons of free cigarettes,in order to get new generations hooked on smoking, to compensate for dwindling western markets! and the facts are the Tobacco companies knew about the effects of smoking many years before it became public,as far back as the 40s and 50s.

In most Countries smoking and related products is a major Tax earner, the last I looked up the income generated from smoking and related products for the UK, was 7 Billion GBP per annum,which all went to the Treasury. While it was costing the National Health Service £ 500 million, a year, a fraction of the revenue brought into Government coffers. The WHO will make feeble gestures,as long as it fools the people,the harsh facts are: banning smoking will destabilise many countries,so what's really needed to replace feeble health warning signs,is a complete ban on Tobacco Smoking,which will never happen,but it's possible to tax them out of existence,over a long period,but then the people will have to make up the tax losses. And as it's a vote loser at the ballot box, It will need to be phased in,bit by bit!

'

[Mosha]

There should be warning signs at swampy airport.

Warning breathing the air inBangkok can damage your health.

[cup-O-coffee]

WHO cares .

WHO cares? The WHO. This is another billion dollars they can whine for on their next over-budget meeting. Spend spend spend. Grow grow grow. If you are not spending, you get it cut out of the nest year's budget.

[curtklay]

The Who just have never been the same since Keith Moon died.

[jpeg]

This is pretty simple. If those images/plain packaging didn't act as a deterrent to some people, Phillip bloody Morris wouldn't be kicking up such a stink over it, would they?

[robertson468]

Forget the fancy pictures, large or small. Just tax the damn things out of existence and YES I am anti-smoking having had a Wife who died of lung cancer and never smoked and exactly the same a couple of years later with my Best Friend's Wife. Am I angry about smoking - yes I am. No doubt there will be some clever dick who will come on wimping about freedom of choice blah, blah blah. Forget it Pal, smoking kills and stinks..............end of!! Write what the hell you like, it will fall on deaf ears.

[Jim walker]

Get the army in and let the snipers pick of the smokers in the streets with their blanks at a safe distance so they dont get their lungs polluted with passive smoking, no one gives a flying <deleted> about how big the warnings are, especially the smokers themselves or the young kids who are just starting out smoking.

[nisakiman]

This is pretty simple. If those images/plain packaging didn't act as a deterrent to some people, Phillip bloody Morris wouldn't be kicking up such a stink over it, would they?

So if you had a business selling pre-packaged cream cakes, and the government of the day suggested that you should cover 85% of your packaging with gross images of medical problems associated with chronic obesity, you'd be quite happy to do so, yes?

I think not.

I think you would (rightly) say that the people who buy your products already know of the risks of eating too many cream cakes, and it's their choice and nothing to do with government. And you might also point out that you spent a lot of money on the design of the pack so that it would stand out among all the other brands of pre-packaged cream cakes on the shelf, hopefully persuading people to buy your product rather than your competitor's product. Because that's what packaging design is all about.

[MAJIC]

Get the army in and let the snipers pick of the smokers in the streets with their blanks at a safe distance so they dont get their lungs polluted with passive smoking, no one gives a flying <deleted> about how big the warnings are, especially the smokers themselves or the young kids who are just starting out smoking.

Why not start with the Boardroom,who are constantly finding new avenues to sell their lethal product? and the invester's who bought shares in the company,from merchants of death.

And then again I don't suppose the shareholders will give a flying <deleted> as long as they get their holidays abroad and Luxuries from annual bonuses either! and yes the young kids need more than a distant warning of the very serious nature of smoking,and the likelihood of an early death!

Smoking not only causes Cancer, the whole Tobacco Industry is a Cancer in it's own right,just ask yourself how many people need to die to pay for a Season of F1 Motor Racing? at 10s of Millions of GBP per Team,per Season, Top Teams have been known to gobble up 100 million GBP + per season,and all written off to the Tax Man.

Edited September 26, 2013 by MAJIC

[jerome2]

the biggest health problem in my area is liver fluke that kills by liver cancer at least 1/3 of the population ,and nothing is done about it

Maybe they should do the same with road signs in Thailand. Maybe make them so big so that they will possible be able to understand them