Indian Trains Carry Tobacco Harms Messages

In India, millions of people commute to and from work via train. The Indian rail network is the fourth largest in the world, and is used most heavily by low-and middle-income Indians. 

As such, the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare’s (MoHFW) new outdoor campaign is set to reach a significant portion of the Indian population. MoHFW launched “Tears You Apart,” an anti-tobacco campaign that will appear on the exterior of trains on some of India’s busiest major railway routes across eight states from 27 April until September 2016. Vital Strategies has provided technical assistance to the Ministry.

The campaign is one of the most geographically extensive health promotion campaigns to utilize the world’s most heavily used railway network, which is used by over 10 million people a day. The campaign will also feature a PSA a Public Service Announcement (PSA) filmed in B. Barooah Cancer Institute in Guwahati, Assam and at the Tata Memorial Hospital in Mumbai, Maharashtra, which shows real victims suffering from horrific cancers and disfigurements as a result of their chewing addiction. It also includes the victims’ relatives, who describe how tobacco-related disease has destroyed careers and family life, and added to their financial burdens. The railway ads could reach people who had not previously seen the campaign on TV.

Although smoking rates have declined in many parts of the world, it has not gone down equally for all segments of society. Low- and middle-income individuals maintain the highest smoking rates in many countries, including India, and tobacco industry tactics continue to be directed towards this segment of the population—especially youth. This campaign is an enormous opportunity to reach those people who suffer the greatest harm from the global tobacco epidemic.

That means a chance to reduce the burden of death and disease that tobacco continues to place on the Indian people and their government. According to the Tobacco Atlas, 120 million adults and over 2.5 million children continue to use tobacco in India. Of those, nearly one million people are killed by a tobacco-related disease every year in the country.

According to Mr. C.K. Mishra, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, “The Government is committed to ensuring healthcare and social safety for all Indians. Warning people about the dangers of tobacco is a key part of our strategy, using mass media campaigns, Film Rule, and all other methods of Behaviour Change Communication. Tears You Apart shows that tobacco-related suffering isn’t limited to disease and disability among patients; their loved ones also share immense health, emotional and financial pains and hardships. It was important for us to highlight this reality in this campaign.”

Source: Vital Strategies

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Supreme Court reminds tobacco makers of their 'duty to society'

The Supreme Court on Wednesday reminded tobacco makers of their "duty to society" and to carry pictorial warnings spread over 85% of both sides of their packaging as mandated under the government's amended 2014 rules, staying a Karnataka High Court order that had prevented implementation of these rules.

"You owe a duty to society," a bench of justices Pinaki Chandra Ghosh and Amitava Roy said while staying the Dharwad bench order.

The earlier 2008 rules required pictorial warnings on just 40% of the packaging on one side.

The new rules mandate pictorial warnings that the industry has said are "gruesome", "gory" and "extremely repulsive", intended to "shock and terrorise the user" rather than being factual and intended to warn the consumer.

The industry has said that the images as well as the textual warnings prescribed are false and misleading. It has said there is no evidence to prove that the images on the pictorial health warnings are of tobacco­related diseases or tobacco consumers.

However, non­governmental organisation Health for Millions, which has been demanding its implementation, urged the court to impose a stay on the high court order.

The Cigarettes and other Tobacco Products (packing and Labelling) Amendment Rules,2014, made under the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution), Act of 2003, were notified to take effect from April 1, 2016.

These were immediately challenged in different high courts. A plea was later made to transfer all these petitions pending in different high courts to the top court which could then deal with the legality of these rules. Instead the top court transt transferred all these pending cases to the Karnataka High Court for a decision.

The top court requested the Karnataka High Court chief justice to ensure that the case was disposed of within eight weeks and despite resistance from the tobacco companies asked them to implement the rules in the meantime. To facilitate this, the top court bench stayed a Dharwad bench order which had prevented these rules from coming into effect for now.

The Dharwad stay "shall not be given effect to till further orders of the Karnataka High Court", it said. Earlier, appearing for the Tobacco Institute of India, senior advocate Arvind P Datar, argued that these rules were "unreasonable", "arbitrary", "unforceable" and violative of the 2003 Act. Datar argued that no consultations were made with the industry before enacting rules which made it mandatory to carry such "gruesome" warnings.

The earlier rule, covering 40% of the packaging only on one side, cannot be overruled without any consultation as it has a huge socioeconomic impact on many sections, Datar argued. "The rules were ultra vires of the Act... as it does not empower the central government to prescribe the size of the warnings.

The Act merely requires the warnings to be legible, prominent and conspicuous as to the size and colour which were met by the unamended 2008 rules. This increase is completely arbitrary, unreasonable and is not based on any parameter," Datar said.

The industry association claimed that the new warnings would prevent tobacco makers from appropriately displaying their trademarks and would cause the market to be flooded with counterfeit products. It said that the tobacco crop directly and indirectly supports 38 million people engaged in production, processing, marketing and exports, including six million farmers.

Source: Economic Times

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Exposure to tobacco in home increases risk of childhood illness: New study

The study found children who lived with a smoker or who had exposure to tobacco smoke inside the home were significantly more likely to have had any medical care visit, including sick care.

The dangers of smoking near a child have been well-documented and now, a new study has revealed that exposure to tobacco smoke inside the home can increase their childhood illnesses.

Researchers analysed 2011-2012 data from the National Survey on Children's Health, which is conducted by the US Centres for Disease and Control Prevention's National Centre for Health Statistics. They looked at patterns of health care utilisation among children ranging in age from newborn to 17 who were living with smokers compared with those who not exposed to tobacco smoke at home.

Results showed a total of 24% of the 95,677 children in the study, corresponding to a weighted total of 17.6 million children across the United States (US), lived with smokers. About 5% of the children lived with someone who smokes inside the home, equivalent to a weighted sum of 3.6 million US children.

Researchers said that children who lived with a smoker or who had exposure to tobacco smoke inside the home were significantly more likely to have had any medical care visit, including sick care. At the same time, researchers said, they were considerably less likely to have had any dental care visits.

Lead author Ashley Merianos of the University of Cincinnati said that settings with a high volume of children exposed to tobacco smoke at home, including paediatric emergency departments, could serve as effective outlets for health messages to inform caregivers about the dangers of smoking around children and help decrease these potentially preventable tobacco smoke exposure-related visits and associated costs.

The research is being presented at the Paediatric Academic Societies 2016 Meeting.

Source: DNA

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