Press Room

The nationwide campaign, called ‘Sponge,' is being aired across 40 TV and 28 radio channels until July 2009 in five languages – English, Hindi, Tamil, Gujarti and Bengali.

On World No Tobacco Day, we are partnering with government health ministries in China and India to launch new tobacco counter‐marketing campaigns in those countries, where the largest populations of smokers in the world reside.

A post-campaign survey showed the number of people who reported they would buy cigarettes as gifts decreased from 45% to 24% in Beijing and from 23% to 12% in Guangzhou after airing the public service advertisement.

Abundant research and economic modeling has shown that consumption will decrease meaning that there is a real, tangible public health benefit from at least this part of the budget.

The World Health Organization's emphasis for World Health Day 2009 is on the resilience and safety of health facilities and the health workers who treat those affected by emergencies. Many of the world's rural areas, however, have very few trained health workers and almost no emergency facilities.

We applaud the Norwegian government for divesting its government pension fund of stocks that profit from tobacco. By doing so, the Norwegian Ministry of Finance has drawn a clear ethical boundary between itself and an industry that has proven it is willing to compromise its customers' health for profit.

Senior Advisor Dr. Judith Mackay was awarded the first-ever Lifetime Achievement Award at the BMJ Group Awards in London. The BMJ Group Awards recognize and celebrate excellence in healthcare across the globe.

According to the World Health Organization's (WHO) Global Tuberculosis Control Report 2008, nine million people around the world die annually from the disease, which is totally curable.

According to The Tobacco Atlas, tobacco's estimated $500 billion drain on the world economy exceeds the total combined annual expenditure on health in all low-and middle-income countries.

The only way to ensure ethical marketing practices is through clear, enforceable regulation.