LETTER FROM DR DEREK YACH WORLD HEALTH
ORGANISATION TO THE CLERK OF THE COMMITTEE (TB 3)
Thank you for your letter of 22 July 1999 addressed
to Dr Brundtland requesting a submission relating to the Health
Committee inquiry into the tobacco industry and the risks of smoking.
Dr Brundtland has asked me to convey to you her view that the
work of your committee is of utmost importance to global health
and comes at a critical time. Tobacco already kills one in 10
adults worldwide, at least 4 million human lives in 1998. By 2030,
perhaps a little sooner, the proportion will be one in six, or
10 million deaths per year—more than any other single cause.
We cannot simply stand by and count the dead.
Internationally, WHO is taking the lead in the United Nations
in heading development of the Framework Convention on Tobacco
Control. The Convention would address transnational aspects of
tobacco control. A Convention, however, would not supplant the
need for effective national and regional laws and regulations
dealing with tobacco. Thus, we must simultaneously pursue national,
regional and international measures.
Unfortunately, regulatory measures are consistently
thwarted by the tobacco industry. For decades, the tobacco industry—including
tobacco companies in the UK—have denied or minimized the
overwhelming scientific evidence of the dangerous effects of tobacco.
The industry has not only denied, but actively kept secret its
knowledge of the health hazards and addictiveness of smoking.
At the same time, the industry has targeted youth in its marketing
campaigns.
The recent disclosure of 35 million pages of
tobacco industry documents demonstrates that for decades the industry
has consciously deceived the public and actively subverted scientific
evidence. I enclose for your Committee's study three published
articles[1]
addressing the misconduct of the tobacco industry. Each of these
articles is based upon documents from the once-secret files of
the tobacco industry, including documents from the files of the
BAT Group, which is headquartered in the UK and which has a major
impact on global health as one of the largest marketers of tobacco
products in the world:
— SA Glantz et al, "Looking Through
a Keyhole at the Tobacco Industry: The Brown & Williamson
Documents," The Journal of the American Medical Association,
July 19, 1995 (and related articles in same issue): The documents
detailed in these articles came from the files of Brown &
Williamson Tobacco Corp (B & W) and its affiliated BAT Group
companies in the UK. In a companion editorial, the American Medical
Association (AMA) summarized these articles as "provid[ing]
massive, detailed, and damning evidence of the tactics of the
tobacco industry. They show us how this industry has managed to
spread confusion by suppressing, manipulating, and distorting
the scientific record." The AMA also stated that the documents
show "that research conducted by tobacco companies into the
deleterious health effects of tobacco was often more advanced
and sophisticated than studies by the medical community,"
"that the industry decided to conceal the truth from the
public," and "that the industry hid their research from
the courts by sending the data through their legal departments......"
— Hurt, R, and Robertson, C, "Prying
Open the Door to the Tobacco Industry's Secrets About Nicotine,"
The Journal of the American Medical Association, October 7, 1998:
This article details the tobacco industry's internal knowledge
that cigarettes are addictive and that cigarettes are nicotine
delivery devices. This article further details the tobacco industry
efforts to manipulate nicotine, including the alteration of the
chemical form to increase the percentage of "freebase"
nicotine delivered to smokers. The article also discusses the
tobacco industry's promotion of low tar cigarettes in a manner
to both exploit smokers and deceive them with implied reductions
in health consequences.
— Ciresi, MV et al, "Decades of
Deceit: Document Discovery in the Minnesota Tobacco Litigation,"
25 William Mitchell L. Rev. 477 (1999): This article details the
concealment of tobacco industry's documents, and industry knowledge
of the health hazards and addictiveness of smoking, for decades.
You note in your letter that the Health Committee
has power to send for persons, papers and records. As the above
articles demonstrate, we have recently learned that one of the
most effective ways to gain an accurate understanding of the actions
of the tobacco industry is from the internal files of the tobacco
industry itself. The internal files of the tobacco industry also
can shed important light on the scientific bases for potential
regulatory action for providing consumer protection, for example,
potential evidence-based regulations on content disclosures.
WHO would therefore urge your Committee to utilize
its authority to send for papers and records. As noted above,
there have been significant disclosures of tobacco industry documents
in recent years. These disclosures, however, are not complete,
and we have much more to learn. For example, only one of the tobacco
companies in the UK, the BAT Group, has been subject to significant
document disclosure requirements (through US litigation and through
the U.S. Congress). In addition, even with respect to the BAT
Group, the disclosures are in need of supplementation: for example,
most of the document disclosures from BAT Group were subject to
a 1994 cutoff date and should be supplemented with more recent
documents. WHO would be available to discuss these issues in more
detail with appropriate personnel on your Committee.
WHO would also urge your Committee to send for
persons, specifically, the senior-most executives of UK tobacco
companies. These executives should be questioned as to their companies'
official stances on the health hazards and addictiveness of cigarettes.
I conclude by again welcoming your inquiry and
offering the assistance of WHO as your work progresses. Dr Brundtland
has previously noted the recent "White Paper" on tobacco
presented to Parliament by the Secretary of State for Health,
and the Secretaries of State for Scotland, Wales and Northern
Ireland, its comprehensive strategy for tackling smoking, and
its call to take steps to counter global smoking trends. Your
work also has the potential of having a major impact on a global
level in curbing this pandemic.
31 August 1999
1 Not printed. Back
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