key: cord-0705512-fueg0dhs
authors: Girvalaki, Charis; Mechili, Enkeleint A.; Loghin, Cornel R.; Filippidis, Filippos T.
title: Social responsibility during the COVID-19 pandemic: Tobacco industry’s trojan horse in Europe
date: 2020-06-15
journal: Tob Prev Cessat
DOI: 10.18332/tpc/123244
sha: 566df677790b10a50ecd30f1c83be9dc8adc6ed7
doc_id: 705512
cord_uid: fueg0dhs

nan

Tob. Prev. Cessation 2020;6(June):37 https://doi.org/10.18332/tpc/123244

In Romania, PMI donated USD 1000000 to the Romanian Red Cross Affiliate to purchase ventilators, medical and protective equipment. Additionally, Daruieste Viata, a major Romanian NGO, received support to produce a video tutorial on washing hands, featuring various celebrities, branded with IQOS's Creative Hub in Romania (Qreator by IQOS). Ahead of the deadline of 20 May when menthol cigarettes would be removed from the EU market, online campaigns by BAT and PMI to push consumers towards HTP's, still available in menthol versions, have intensified.

In Switzerland, BAT offered to provide free smokeless tobacco products to members of the Swiss army currently deployed around the country.

In Turkey, PMI and JTI made donations to the national COVID-19 help campaign (USD 675000 and USD 180000 respectively).

Although many physical shops were closed, online sales continued across Europe offering free delivery (e.g. in Cyprus, Romania, and Ukraine), while TI activities in all countries have been heavily promoted by a number of traditional and social media.

All the above reveal a series of deliberate tactics through which TI is exploiting media attention to improve their corporate profile, break down opposition, present themselves as socially responsible enterprises, engage with governments and promote products such HTPs or even attempt to renormalize tobacco consumption.

We recognize that governments around the world are fighting the pandemic with limited resources and in the face of a major recession any support may be valuable. However, we are urging them to uphold their commitment to Article 5.3 of the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control which requires governments to take measures to protect health policy 'from commercial and other vested interests of the tobacco industry' 6 , while supporting smoking cessation. Any other action would jeopardize their capacity and credibility to protect their people from a leading cause of death, which is also associated with more severe outcomes of COVID-19 3, 7 . Civil society, media and the entire public health community should remain alert and contribute to protecting population health. Continued tobacco use is likely to kill many times more people than the current pandemic, which only shows the devastating impact of smoking in European countries and globally 1 .

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COVID-19 and smoking: A systematic review of the evidence

Global Center for Good Governance in Tobacco Control. Tobacco Industry's COVID Donations vs Economic Cost of Tobacco

A nicotinic hypothesis for Covid-19 with preventive and therapeutic implications

Guidelines for implementation of article 5.3 of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control

Clinical characteristics of coronavirus disease 2019 in China