Leaked documents from Japan show the tobacco industry is attempting to interfere with efforts by governments, the World Health Organization (WHO) and other groups to protect people from tobacco harm, including from new nicotine and tobacco products, such as e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products.
Currently, the Viet Nam Ministry of Health is proposing that the National Assembly issue a resolution to ban harmful and addictive e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products.
Minister of Health Dao Hong Lan told the National Assembly on 11 November that tobacco companies made these products appeal to children and teenagers, who were not aware of their negative effects on health.
Surveys have shown a rapid increase in e-cigarette and heated-tobacco product use among youth aged 13-17 and young adults aged 15 to 24.
The tobacco industry’s misleading strategy was causing concrete harms, Minister Lan said. More than 1,200 emergency hospital cases were reported in 2023, due to harm caused by these products.
Documents recently leaked from Philip Morris Japan reveal the tobacco industry’s strategy to sabotage health policies and lie about health harms from new nicotine and tobacco products.
Philip Morris Japan works to secretly influence science and lobby politicians, putting profits over public health, according to analysis of the leak by global tobacco industry watchdog STOP and the Tobacco Control Research Group at the University of Bath, in the United Kingdom.
Philip Morris International claims its heated tobacco product, IQOS, is only for adult smokers, but leaked materials show it tries to appeal to a wider audience, including children and teenagers. IQOS is addictive and emissions contain many harmful toxins. Emissions from this product contain at least 80 chemicals, some in higher concentrations than in ordinary cigarette smoke, and four possible or likely carcinogens. IQOS has not been proven to help people quit smoking; many IQOS users continue to smoke.
Evidence also suggests the tobacco giant has a blueprint for a global campaign that could spark a new tobacco epidemic that threatens public health in Viet Nam and around the world.
WHO Representative in Viet Nam Dr Angela Pratt commended the Government’s efforts to implement evidence-based tobacco control measures – despite industry tactics.
“The leaked documents reveal just how untrustworthy the tobacco industry is. We have seen this story play out before: the tobacco industry lied to us for decades about combustible tobacco not causing cancer. Why should we trust them now when they tell us heated tobacco products are not harmful for health? The leaked PMJ documents make it clear: we shouldn’t.
“It is crucial to protect young people from the industry’s deadly products. WHO continues to stand with the Government and people of Viet Nam against an industry that targets vulnerable youth with harmful new products while lying about their impact.
“WHO urges Viet Nam, in the strongest possible terms, to ban the importation, manufacture, distribution, sale, advertising and promotion of all of these products – to protect health, especially this country’s most precious resource, the health of its children and young people.”
A growing number of countries, currently about 40, including five countries in ASEAN -Thailand, Singapore, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Brunei Darussalam and Cambodia – now ban them entirely.
Dr Pratt also addressed some of the false claims made by the industry.
“New nicotine and tobacco products are very harmful to health. They contain toxic chemicals that have been shown to cause cancer, and heart and lung disease. In the short term, they can also cause very serious, even fatal, lung injuries. For children and young people, who are targeted by the industry, they can seriously impair brain development.
“There is no evidence that these products help people to give up smoking tobacco. In fact, the opposite is true: they introduce people – especially young people – to nicotine, to get them hooked to both new and conventional products”