January 31, 2008
Roswell Park Cancer Institute

Buffalo NY – Roswell Park Cancer Institute (RPCI) has joined with more than 150 health organizations in over 70 countries worldwide calling on governments to adopt comprehensive tobacco control measures to ensure that Altria Group Inc.’s recent decision to split Philip Morris International from Philip Morris Tobacco USA does not worsen the tobacco epidemic.

“Roswell Park is urging governments to ratify and strongly implement the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which will ban the tobacco industry from lobbying or working on legislation to implement the global treaty. This agreement also will exclude tobacco products from bilateral and multilateral trade and investment agreements,” said Donald Trump, MD, FACP, President and CEO, RPCI, located in Buffalo, New York.

"The unleashing of Philip Morris International from Philip Morris USA will make what is a bad situation even worse," says Michael Cummings, PhD, Chairman of the Department of Health Behavior and Director of the International Tobacco Control Project at RPCI.  "In the last century tobacco was responsible for 100 million deaths, in this century that figure is expected to grow 10-fold to 1 billion deaths, unless governments intercede to rein in companies such as Philip Morris.”

In a recent Wall Street Journal article which can be found at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120156034185223519.html, executives of Philip Morris International boasted how the spin off of their international business will allow them to expand markets overseas and escape negative public opinion and regulatory oversight that has helped lower tobacco consumption in the United States. Already Philip Morris is introducing new products and forging relationships with international partners such as China Tobacco, which will permit cigarettes to be sold at lower prices, making a dangerous and addictive product affordable and available to large numbers of uneducated consumers.

"An independent Philip Morris International based outside of the United States will be immune to even the possibility of domestic regulation in the United States or litigation in U.S. courts," said Anna White of the U.S.-based corporate accountability group Essential Action. "This has been a real threat to Philip Morris International."

“In their quest for profits Philip Morris has already outsourced most of their tobacco growing and manufacturing operations to overseas locations,” added Dr. Cummings.  “Tobacco grown in parts of China is loaded with high levels of metals like lead and cadmium that get into the soil from pollution and unregulated pesticides.  Already in this country we’ve seen problems with contaminated food and toys coming from China; next will be tobacco products.  Frankly, Marlboro’s are already pretty dangerous when made right here in the USA, but they will only get more dangerous when we start importing them from places where no regulatory measures are in place to control how the products are produced.”   

For more about the campaign to stop the global epidemic of tobacco visit www.philipmorrisbreakup.org/calltogovs.

Roswell Park Cancer Institute, founded in 1898, is the nation’s first cancer research, treatment and education center and is the only National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center in Upstate New York. RPCI is a member of the prestigious National Comprehensive Cancer Network, an alliance of the nation’s leading cancer centers. Roswell Park has affiliate sites and collaborative programs in New York, Pennsylvania, and in China. For more information, visit RPCI’s website at www.roswellpark.org, call 1-877-ASK-RPCI (1-877-275-7724) or e-mail askrpci@roswellpark.org.

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