World No Tobacco Day 2009 (31/5/09) should prompt the Australian Government to increase the size of graphic warnings on tobacco products, Cancer Council Australia said today.
Chair of Cancer Council Australia’s Tobacco Issues Committee, Kylie Lindorff, said Australia lagged behind world’s best practice in key policy areas such as tobacco excise and graphic health warnings – the theme of this year’s World No Tobacco Day.
“The Government’s own Preventative Health Taskforce is expected to submit its final recommendations next month,” Ms Lindorff said.
“With the taskforce report expected to call for important measures such as an increase in tobacco excise and the use of larger graphic health warnings, World No Tobacco Day should prompt the Government to adopt these evidence-based recommendations.”
Ms Lindorff said the World Health Organisation observed World No Tobacco Day each year to highlight the enormous death and disease burden attributed to smoking – which remained by far the largest cause of premature death and disability internationally and in Australia.
“More than 5 million people worldwide die each year from tobacco-related disease, including more than 15,000 Australians,” she said.
“One of the most effective ways to reduce this death toll is to warn smokers of the risks of smoking through graphic images on tobacco product packaging.
“New evidence is continually emerging about graphic warnings and the need to make them increasingly effective, yet we have had only three reviews in 20 years.
“Australia has fallen behind many other countries, with warnings here occupying only 30 per cent of the front of the pack, compared with 50 per cent in many jurisdictions requiring graphic health images.
“With lung cancer now claiming the lives of more Australian women than breast cancer and an increasingly disproportionate tobacco disease burden falling on socially disadvantaged Australians, the Government should respond to the WHO’s World No Tobacco Day theme and adopt its own independent experts’ recommendations to review graphic warnings.”
MEDIA CONTACTS:
Lesley Branagan, 0439 827 781 lesley.branagan@cancer.org.au
Glen Turner, 0412 443 212 glen.turner@cancer.org.au