HPHWD

If you work in public health in England you might be forgiven for not recognising the following sentence: “We are recognising and acting on the effects which employment, education, housing, and the environment have on health outcomes.” I could point to the ending of the highly successful Healthy Schools programme, and Jamie Oliver might have something to say on school meal standards. That’s without getting into the growth in unemployment, cuts in educational allowances and housing benefits, and the failure to deliver promises about being the “greenest government ever.” According to a YouGov poll only 2% of the population believe the UK has the “greenest government ever;” and the people are right.

May 31 is World No Tobacco Day. This year’s theme is tobacco industry interference, chosen, in WHO’s words, “to expose and counter the tobacco industry’s brazen and increasingly aggressive attempts to undermine the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC)”. In its 2008 report Tobacco industry interference with tobacco control, WHO outlines “the long history and the extent of tobacco industry efforts to avoid, delay and dilute” effective tobacco control policies. Key methods include lobbying, political donations, exploiting legislative loopholes, undermining or countering research, and funding groups or individuals to advance the tobacco industry’s objectives. Examples include the industry’s attempts to counter research by the International Agency for Research on Cancer that showed the link between passive smoking and lung cancer, and to undermine the US Environmental Protection Agency’s assessment of the risks associated with second-hand smoke. Direct funding of business analysts, scientists, and even historians has been important in promoting the interests of the tobacco industry over those of public health.