USA/ASIA: US-BASED THINK-TANK TRIES TO INTIMIDATE REGIONAL TOBACCO CONTROL GROUP

Tobacco control advocates are familiar with the “scream test” – the litmus test for an effective measure that hurts the tobacco industry and causes it to protest. Recently, a regional tobacco control group, the Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (SEATCA) received a 36-page letter from Dr Gary Johns on behalf of the International Tax and Investment Center (ITIC) which shows the industry screaming.

The ITIC is a think tank based in Washington DC that claims to be an independent, non-profit research and educational organisation supported by 100 corporations including four transnational tobacco companies (BAT, PMI, JTI and Imperial Brands), each of which are represented on its board of directors (http://www.iticnet.org/Sponsors_BoardOfDirectors). Dr Gary Johns is an Australian consultant “engaged by ITIC to engage with its critics”.

The letter sent to SEATCA is riddled with false accusations against SEATCA, mischaracterizations of fact and law, disparaging comments about the World Health Organization (WHO), the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control Secretariat (FCS) and the Parties to the FCTC.

What had SEATCA done to bring about this tirade? In 2012, the ITIC and Oxford Economics (OE) released a report on illicit tobacco trade, Asia-11 Illicit Tobacco Indicator 2012 to provide evidence of illicit trade of tobacco products of 11 countries in Asia. The ITIC later launched an updated version, Asia-14 Illicit Tobacco Indicator 2013”, expanding the review to 14 countries in Asia. Both reports were funded by Philip Morris International (PMI).

SEATCA published critiques of both reports. The first, More Myth than Fact provided an expert review of the methodology of the Asia-11 report, questioning the reliability and accuracy of the estimates of illicit consumption. The second, A Critique of the ITIC/OE Asia-14 …