The Australian Medical Association has accused Rupert Murdoch’s The Australian newspaper of marketing smoking and “big tobacco” by publishing a series of articles undermining the nation’s plain packaging legislation.
The Australian, owned by News Corp, has previously argued that plain packaging deprives tobacco firms of their intellectual house rights, and earlier this month went additional and claimed that plain packaging had led to an improve in tobacco product sales.
“The AMA urges the government to restate its support for the plain packaging laws and tobacco control typically, and we urge the Australian and other media to stop offering Large Tobacco a totally free ride in marketing its killer merchandise,” the AMA president, Associate Professor Brian Owler, mentioned.
The intervention of the peak health care physique came after The Australian published an additional five content articles on Wednesday essential of public health initiatives to lower smoking costs, such as plain packaging.
The series of news reviews and view pieces have been in response to the ABC’s Media View plan, which slammed The Australian’s earlier exclusive story claiming that there had been an increase in consumption as “garbage”.
On six June The Australian ran a front-page story headlined “Labor’s plain packaging fails as cigarette income rise”.
“Labor’s nanny state push to kill off the country’s addiction to cigarettes with plain packaging has backfired, with new sales figures exhibiting tobacco consumption expanding throughout the 1st complete year of the new laws,” the newspaper reported.
But the accuracy of the proof presented in the report was instantly called into question by some economists and well being experts, as it right contradicted government figures.
A single of the economists who condemned the story, Stephen Koukoulas, stated tobacco consumption in the 1st quarter of 2014 was the lowest ever recorded.
The professor of health policy at Curtin University, Mike Daube, also condemned the report: “Every bit of the report is dodgy, from the way it was set up, to what’s in it, to the lack of analysis.”
Media Watch quoted the two experts in its story, and recommended The Australian had been influenced by the views of the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), a proper-wing thinktank.
Undeterred by the Media Watch report, The Australian returned fire, publishing a total broadsheet web page of stories on Wednesday.
One particular of the viewpoint pieces was written by Professor Sinclair Davidson, an economist at RMIT and a senior fellow at the IPA, which has reportedly obtained money from the tobacco business. British American Tobacco Australia informed the Sydney Morning Herald in 2012 it was a member of the IPA.
Davidson wrote that plain packaging policy introduced by the earlier Labor government was “state-sponsored persecution of that minority who eat tobacco”.
Davidson was also quoted in the newspaper as saying: “I have no doubt that the consumption of cigarettes has risen because plain packaging was introduced we just can not be positive regardless of whether it is by current smokers or new smokers.”
But according to the division of well being, recent figures launched by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) demonstrate that complete consumption of tobacco and cigarettes in the March quarter 2014 is the lowest ever recorded.
It has dropped from $ three.508bn in December 2012 to 3.405 billion in March 2014.
The Guardian’s Information Blog analysed the figures used by The Australian on June 6 and located there was indeed a little .28% boost in sales 12 months on yr but the paper had failed to account for the improve in the population between 2012 and 2013.
“Adjusted for population, tobacco income per particular person have truly continued to reduce from 920.four in 2012 to 906.9 in 2013,” the Data Site reported.
The AMA was joined by the Cancer Council in pointing the finger at the tobacco industry for driving a misinformation campaign to undermine the effectiveness of plain packaging, but stopped brief of naming the Australian.
The Cancer Council CEO and healthcare oncologist, Professor Ian Olver, cited new Treasury figures which he said had been a more indication of a decline in smoking, with tobacco clearances (like excise and customs duty) falling by three.four% in 2013 relative to 2012, when tobacco plain packaging was launched.
“The so-called data becoming spun by the tobacco market to declare that plain packaging has not worked is plain wrong,” Olver stated in a statement.
“If we utilised tobacco market claims to guidebook wellness policy, existence expectancy in Australia would be much reduce than it is today.”
The Cancer Council mentioned the tobacco industry’s misinformation campaign was “aimed at undermining the introduction of plain packaging in the UK”.
“In a nation of 63 million people, plain packaging would be a main blow to the tobacco industry’s earnings,” Prof Olver said.
In Wednesday’s report The Australian claimed that the government’s anti-smoking measures had been driving a boom in low cost cigarettes because smokers were “purchasing far more cigarettes from the lowest marketplace section”.
“Neilsen data signifies that 42.three per cent of all cigarettes now purchased are priced at significantly less than $ 15 a pack, a rise from 25.6 per cent of the market in 2011 and 35.2 per cent at the end of final yr,” the report explained.
The report quoted tobacco industry executives to back this claim. The managing director of Philip Morris, John Gledhill, informed The Australian: “As market and market authorities have previously warned, the government’s forced removal of tobacco manufacturers and trademarks has triggered intense cost competitors.”
Australian Health care Association accuses The Australian of selling smoking
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