[Intl-tobacco] BAT fuming over WHO Convention

[Robert Weissman]

 Tobacco men fuming over World Health
 proposals
 By Rosie Murray-West
Electronic Telegraph
16 March 2000

 TOBACCO giant British American Tobacco said yesterday attacked the
 World Health Organisation's proposals for a legally binding international
 convention on tobacco control.

 BAT say that this would remove governments' rights to determine their own
 priorities. It is writing to trade secretary Stephen Byers and trade
ministers
 across the globe saying the WHO is undermining the sovereignty of national
 governments. Michael Prideaux, BAT spokesman, said: "The WHO has
 been taken over by a coalition of anti-tobacco activists whose stated
 purpose is to hound tobacco companies out of business.

 "Tobacco is not an environmental issue which needs a supra-national
 convention. It is a consumer product and best regulated by the people that
 consumers vote for." He said, while BAT and the other tobacco company's
 could not take part in negotiations with the WHO, anti-tobacco groups such
 as Ash were involved in the talks.

 He added that drug companies such as Glaxo SmithKline, which makes
 nicotine patches, were supporting the WHO initiative. He said: "National
 governments earn ten times as much money from the tobacco industry as we
 do. They have no desire to put us out of business. However, this does seem
 to be the WHO's policy." The WHO declined to comment.