Public Health Groups Agree: Carve Tobacco Out of Trade

News provided by

Dec 05, 2013, 05:11 ET

WASHINGTON, Dec. 5, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The following is a letter to Ambassador Michael Froman from Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) and other organizations (undersigned):

Dear Ambassador Froman:

We seek your explicit commitment that the U.S. will not propose or agree to any provisions in the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) that would undermine the domestic sovereign rights of participating countries to adopt or maintain measures to reduce tobacco use and to prevent the harm it causes to public health.

We call your attention to the compelling body of statements by major medical, public health, and public interest organizations in the United States, listed below, that consistently call on the U.S. to exercise leadership in the negotiations on the TPP to advance tobacco control measures that contribute to reducing the enormous burden of disease related to tobacco use, and prevent incursions by the tobacco industry against those measures.

We must remove tobacco control measures and tobacco products from trade agreements and assure that tobacco control measures will not be subject to challenge through the TPP and all future trade agreements. Malaysia, a TPP trading partner, has proposed carving out tobacco control measures, and tobacco products, from the agreement. This proposal, if accepted, would set a standard in trade law that would complement the global consensus on fighting the tobacco epidemic enshrined in the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, to which all TPP countries are signatories.

Tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of death, claiming over 6 million lives a year. Past trade agreements have provided opportunities for multinational tobacco corporations to make cigarettes cheaper, to launch massive marketing campaigns, and to challenge public health measures such as a U.S. ban on clove cigarettes, and plain packaging. The U.S. must lead the way towards policies that protect and improve the public's health.

Sincerely,

Ellen R. Shaffer, PhD MPH,	Joseph E. Brenner, MA	Laurent Huber, MSFD
Co-Directors		Executive Director
Center for Policy Analysis on Trade and Health (CPATH)		Action on Smoking and Health (ASH)

Full packet and individual letters posted below, or go to: http://www.cpath.org/id59.html.

Organizations cited
Action on Smoking and Health
Alameda Health Commission
American Academy of Family Physicians
American Academy of Pediatrics
American Academy of Pediatrics, California Chapter 1
American Cancer Society - Cancer Action Network
American College of Physicians
American College of Preventive Medicine
American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
American Heart Association, American Stroke Association
American Medical Association
American Medical Students Association
American Public Health Association
American Society of Addiction Medicine
American Society of Clinical Oncology
Association of State and Territorial Health Organizations
Boston Women's Health Book Collective/Our Bodies Ourselves
California Conference of Local Health Officers (CCLHO)
California Public Health Association-North
Center for Policy Analysis on Trade and Health (CPATH)
Corporate Accountability International
Health Officers Association of California
Human Rights and Tobacco Control Network
International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer
Maine Citizen Trade Policy Commission
Physicians for Social Responsibility
Prevention Institute
Public Health Institute
San Francisco Medical Society
San Francisco Tobacco Free Coalition
Society of Thoracic Surgeons
Vermont Commission on International Trade and State Sovereignty