95 health groups request Phillip Morris International to stop selling cigarrettes
On 14 September, 95 organizations from around the globe published an open letter to Philip Morris International (PMI) demanding that they immediately cease the production, marketing and sale of cigarettes. The move was prompted by a similar recommendation from the Danish Institute for Human Rights, which had been hired by PMI to perform a human rights evaluation.
PMI owns and markets some of the world’s most popular brands of cigarettes, including Marlboro. Tobacco use is the world’s leading cause of preventable death, taking over 7 million lives a year, and is the most important risk factor for cancer, responsible for approximately 22% of cancer deaths. If current trends continue, tobacco will kill one billion people this century, according to the World Health Organization.
“Tobacco companies have known for more than half a century that cigarettes cause death when used as intended, and yet they still produce and market them aggressively,” said Laurent Huber, Executive Director of Action on Smoking and Health. “They could have removed these deadly products from their portfolio, but instead there is plenty of evidence that they have labored to engineer cigarettes to be as addictive as possible. This is unconscionable, and PMI has admitted as much in the past.”
UICC was one among the nearly 100 organisations that signed this open letter. This effort also aligns with the call for accelerated implementation of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), which was outlined in the 2017 cancer resolution.
To read the full press release, click here.
Last update
Friday 07 June 2019
