Cancer Council Victoria says it had no concept a British American Tobacco worker was behind a freedom of details request for information on the tobacco use and acquiring habits of 1000′s of school children.
For the past 30 years, the council has surveyed youngsters aged among 12 and 17 about their age, gender and location, accessibility to income, alcohol and tobacco consumption and getting habits, and preferred brands.
The director of the Victorian Cancer Council, Todd Harper, stated a attorney had requested the survey information underneath the Freedom of Information Act, but the request was rejected since it was not in the public interest to release it.
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It was not right up until Fairfax Media reported the lawyer had appealed towards the determination to Victoria’s Civil and Administrative Tribunal, that the council became mindful the attorney was an employee of the tobacco giant, Harper said.
“We had no idea that British American Tobacco was behind the request,” he said. “All we knew was it was an person from a law firm who wanted the information. I’m disappointed that the tobacco firm wasn’t upfront about its involvement.”
Harper stated the council was concerned that, as soon as manufactured public, the data could be utilized by tobacco and alcohol firms to acquire insight into the purchasing and drug consumption routines of younger folks, as nicely as the varieties of brand names that appealed to them.
The information is utilized by the Cancer Council to assist it recognize exactly where and how to direct publishing health messaging, as effectively as for scientific scientific studies. When mothers and fathers consented to their young children finishing the survey, the did so believing the information would be used only in the curiosity of public health, Harper explained.
Fairfax Media also exposed that the identical attorney utilised the Freedom of Information Act to get info from surveys of adult smokers in that state, which integrated queries about their attitudes toward smoking.
“The Cancer Institute NSW was compelled to give tobacco survey information requested underneath the NSW Government Info [Public access] Act,” its chief cancer officer, David Currow, told Fairfax.
A spokeswoman for British American Tobacco advised Guardian Australia the Victorian data request “wasn’t about children”.
“This is about plain packaging,” she stated. “We did not look for any individual data or info in respect of youngsters. We’ve asked for figures by way of a standard freedom of info request because we want to discover out if plain packaging, a measure introduced with out evidence and that straight influences our business, is possessing the effect the Australian government claims it is.”
In a globe very first, Australia passed plain packaging legislation in 2011, requiring all cigarette packaging to be stripped of marketing and branding, apart from the organization name and health warnings. All tobacco now comes in olive green cardboard containers with graphic overall health messages.
In a series of papers published by the Cancer Council in the BMJ journal Tobacco Control in March, plain packaging was related with an enhance in the variety of men and women pondering about quitting and trying to quit. The investigation also identified kids aged in between twelve and 17 found standardised packaging much less attractive.
An appeal date for the freedom of details request is nevertheless to be set.
Cancer Council unaware tobacco giant behind FOI request on child smoking habits
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