Abstract
Objective: To describe tobacco industry efforts in Malaysia to thwart government efforts to regulate tobacco promotion and health warnings.
Methods: Systematic keyword and opportunistic website searches of formerly private tobacco industry internal documents made available through the Master Settlement Agreement and secondary websites; relevant information from news articles and financial reports.
Results: Commencing in the 1970s, the industry began to systematically thwart government tobacco control. Guidelines were successfully promoted in the place of legislation for over two decades. Even when the government succeeded in implementing regulations such as health warnings and advertising bans they were compromised and acted effectively to retard further progress for years to come.
Conclusion: Counter-measures to delay or thwart government efforts to regulate tobacco were initiated by the industry. Though not unique to Malaysia, the main difference lies in the degree to which strategies were used to successfully counter stringent tobacco control measures between 1970 and 1995.
Full Text
The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (111.6 KB).
Selected References
These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.
- Aftab M., Kolben D., Lurie P. International cigarette labelling practices. Tob Control. 1999 Winter;8(4):368–372. doi: 10.1136/tc.8.4.368. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Assunta M., Chapman S. The tobacco industry's accounts of refining indirect tobacco advertising in Malaysia. Tob Control. 2004 Dec;13 (Suppl 2):ii63–ii70. doi: 10.1136/tc.2004.008987. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Chapman S., Carter S. M. "Avoid health warnings on all tobacco products for just as long as we can": a history of Australian tobacco industry efforts to avoid, delay and dilute health warnings on cigarettes. Tob Control. 2003 Dec;12 (Suppl 3):iii13–iii22. doi: 10.1136/tc.12.suppl_3.iii13. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Lee Kelley, Gilmore Anna B., Collin Jeff. Looking inside the tobacco industry: revealing insights from the Guildford Depository. Addiction. 2004 Apr;99(4):394–397. doi: 10.1111/j.1360-0443.2004.00718.x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Mahood G. Warnings that tell the truth: breaking new ground in Canada. Tob Control. 1999 Winter;8(4):356–361. doi: 10.1136/tc.8.4.356. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Neuman Mark, Bitton Asaf, Glantz Stanton. Tobacco industry strategies for influencing European Community tobacco advertising legislation. Lancet. 2002 Apr 13;359(9314):1323–1330. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(02)08275-2. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]