UK Anti-smoking drive in chaos/Charities angry over firm's links totobacco industry (fwd)

[Robert Weissman <rob@essential.org>]

Anti-smoking drive in chaos/Charities angry over firm's links to tobacco
industry
by Anthony Browne / Health Editor
Source: The Guardian, Sunday, 12/12/99

The government's biggest anti-smoking campaign was in chaos last night
after it emerged that the company hired to organise it has strong links to
the tobacco industry - and had even been involved in selling cigars -
prompting leading cancer charities to announce that they were boycotting
the drive.

The Government's campaign, tagged 'Don't Give Up Giving Up' and due to be
launched tomorrow, is based around a new telephone helpline operated by
the company Broadsystem, which until a few weeks ago sold cigars over the
phone for Imperial Tobacco.

It is also a wholly owned subsidiary of News International, whose major
shareholder, Rupert Murdoch, is also a director of the world's largest
tobacco company, Philip Morris, which helped to obtain the injunction that
has forced the Government to delay implementing the ban on cigarette
advertising.

Officials at the Health Education Authority believe the new launch is so
confused that it could end up actually costing lives.

The directors-general of the Cancer Research Campaign, the Imperial Cancer
Research Fund and the British Heart Foundation - three of the five largest
charities in the UK - wrote a joint letter last week to the Health
Secretary, Alan Milburn, saying: 'We each of us have strong ethical
policies preventing us from working with tobacco-connected organisations.'

A spokeswoman for the Cancer Research Campaign said: 'It's put us in a
hideous position. We've worked hard to be whiter than white. It would be a
nonsense for us to work with a company with tobacco-related links.'

The CRC is threatening not to refer enquirers to the government helpline,
nor to distribute the campaign leaflets.

A spokesman for the Department of Health said: 'Murdoch's membership of
the board of Philip Morris is irrelevant. To suggest we're in collusion
with the tobacco industry is an outrageous slur.'

And Alex Green, the managing director of Broadsystem, said: 'We terminated
out contract with Imperial Tobacco, and we are now not doing any work with
the tobacco industry.'

Anti-smoking groups are also particularly angry that the new campaign has
undermined the existing service Quitline, which is the most successful
telephone helpline for smokers in the world, with more than 400,000
callers last year. Quit - the charity which runs Quitline - has spent
millions of pounds promoting its number.

However, for the campaign to be launched tomorrow, the Government insisted
on changing the number to 0800 169 0 169. No Smoking Day, the charity
which runs the national 'no smoking day' in March, has already spent
£100,000 printing literature for the event with the old number.

Kevin Barron, the Labour chair of the House of Commons All-Party Group on
Smoking and Health, believes the switch in numbers will confuse people, so
there will be a fall-off in calls. 'It's inevitable in the short term it
will backfire.'

One official from the Health Education Authority said: 'It will cost
lives.'

The Government's anti-smoking campaign is part of its strategy to reduce
deaths from heart disease and cancer. Alan Milburn is to tell health
authorities that they must audit their heart disease services in
preparation for the National Service Framework, due to be launched in
January.