Inquiry call on tobacco giant's plan

By FERGUS SHIEL

The Anti-Cancer Council of Victoria yesterday called for a federal inquiry into the tobacco industry after revelations that the tobacco giant Philip Morris had tried to derail Australia's anti-smoking lobby.

Further pressure on the industry came with confirmation that the federal Health Minister, Dr Michael Wooldridge, was demanding that it disclose its research on the harmful effects of smoking by the end of July.

The minister is demanding to know when the companies became aware of the harmful effects of smoking and what they did to immediately alert the relevant public health authorities to them. He has also sought the release of information on all cigarette additives.

Documents posted on the Internet as part of a legal settlement in the US have revealed that Philip Morris had set aside $100,000 a month in 1992 to counter Australian campaigns pointing out the health risks of smoking.

They show that the company wanted to thwart one of the world's "best organised, best financed, most politically savvy" anti-smoking lobbies through pressure on Anti-Cancer Council members and political networking.

A spokeswoman for Philip Morris yesterday defended its legal right to monitor its operating environment and to seek to present its view to politicians and the media. "Our opponents do exactly the same thing."

Inquiries were a matter for the Government, and the company had cooperated with all previous ones, she said.

The Anti-Cancer Council's director, Professor Robert Burton, said the battle lines in the tobacco war were clearer than ever after the exposure of Philip Morris's strategy.

"The fact of the matter is this is an industry marketing a lethal product for dollars. In other words, they

are marketing death, disease and despair to Australians," he said.

"It is the number one preventable cause of disease in Australia and governments have been tiptoeing around it for years. I think a national inquiry is now needed."

A spokesman for Dr Wooldridge said the minister had written to the nation's three cigarette manufacturers asking them to disclose information about their product and its effects by 31 July.

He declined to reveal the reasons behind the letters. "I would not want to flag what we may choose to do in the event that the information is provided or is not provided."

The Australian Medical Association's Victorian president, Dr Gerald Segal, said Philip Morris almost certainly had a 1998 plan similar to its 1992 one, but he did not expect ever to see it.

Dr Segal said he would prefer to see the price of cigarettes immediately doubled, smoking banned in enclosed public places and an end to Grand Prix tobacco advertising than massive financial settlements like those reached by several US states with international tobacco giants.

"The politicians are going to have to be dragged screaming to the table to put in legislation, because the cigarette companies have got to them quite obviously," he said.

A spokeswoman for Victoria's Health Minister, Mr Rob Knowles, said he had no plans to outlaw public smoking, but believed workplace safety laws were reducing it already.

Carlton Football Club's president, Mr John Elliott, apologised yesterday for smoking on Channel 9's The Footy Show, according to the club's sponsor VicHealth. Mr Elliott said he had not intended to actively promote smoking, VicHealth said. It said his smoking on the show had breached its sponsorship agreement.