Sounds Familiar??
Vietnam Tobacco Industry’s (VINATABA) reasons why Vietnam cannot have picture-based pack warnings.
Excerpts from VINATABA’s presentation at the Workshop on Development of New Health Warnings, July 3, 2006
• Most countries in the world are using text-only health warnings, not pictorial ones. We are a poor developing country with outdated production technology and uncontrollable cigarette smuggling.
• Printing pictorial health warnings will be costly for the tobacco industry.
• Cigarette package area is quite small. We have to print many other information on the pack, including brand name, name and address of the tobacco company, quantity and quality, date of manufacturing and obey the regulation of stamping on cigarette package. Printing colourful pictorial health warnings will give us difficulties in designing and arranging all the information.
• Our current printing machines are not modern enough to print colourful pictorial health warnings.
• It is estimated that cost for the printing will be 60VND/pack x 2.5 billion packs/year = 150 billion VND/ year. We have no money investing in the printing.
It was the proverbial slip between the cup and the lip for Vietnamese tobacco control as the directives on pack warnings in the Prime Ministerial Instruction were released in May this year.
Vietnam’s Tobacco Control Working Group and activists have long been demanding picture-based, rotational pack warnings occupying 50% of the front and back of tobacco packs.
The decision of the Ministry of Health in January this
year appeared to be a stepping
stone in their journey as it
required rotational warnings on
30% of front and back of
packs, with the option for pictures.
The decree made room to consider mandatory pictures by 2010.
However, the recent Prime Ministerial Instruction, which superseded the health authority’s decision, undermined the FCTC.
Warnings suggest uncertainly that “Smoking Can Cause Cancer”, with no pictures in sight!
The notion of rotational warnings also seems to have faded away.
This decree mirrors proposals from the Vietnam National Tobacco Corporation (VINATABA).
The Tobacco Corporation proposed the ambiguous, text-only warning, to come into effect after 2008.
Apparently the company contributes about 3% to the total state budget annually.
Obviously, the annual social cost for treatment of three common diseases caused by smok- ing (lung cancer, heart attack and COPD) of 804 billion dongs (US$50.2 million), accounting for 18% of the country’s total health costs, has been overlooked.
Equally ignored are the voices of
Vietnamese consumers who were
strongly in favour of clear health
warnings on tobacco packaging in a
survey conducted by Vietnam Standards and Consumers Association
in August 2006.
Text-only warnings occupying 30% or 50% pack space were considered ineffective by more than a quarter of the respondents. Notably smokers too showed a similar preference.
Vietnam’s state-regulated media contributed by way of 50 supportive reports on pack warnings in 2006 alone.
The only negative report identified in the local media monitoring was, no doubt, in a tobacco industry magazine.
It is frustrating when the State, the custodian of national welfare, consumer protection and public health, undermines clear con- sumer will and public mandate in exchange for transient gains for industry groups.
Vietnam is a party to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC).
At least 14 other Parties have finalized requirements for picture warnings in keeping with their FCTC commitment and affording basic consumer rights to their citizens.
And many more are in the process of doing so. Vietnam has yet to get it right and the country has only eight months left to live up to the spirit of its FCTC obligation on pack warnings by 17 March 2008.
Will tobacco industry succeed in continuing to deprive Vietnam of picture-based warnings on its tobacco packs?
The international community is closely watching to see if the will of Vietnamese consumers prevails and pictures take their rightful place on their tobacco packs.
Tran Thi Kieu Thanh Ha
Shoba John
HealthBridge
Article initially published in the Alliance Bulletin #70 (p.4/5) (pdf link)
Comments