Doctor support wanted: New campaign urges focus shift to public health remedies as key to provincial anti tobacco suits

OTTAWA | The story, he says, isn’t and shouldn’t be about him. But what he would like is for doctors across Canada to play a leading role in taking up the cause.Earlier this week, Garfield Mahood, for decades a thorn in the side of Big Tobacco, sent a letter to provincial attorneys general and health ministers from his Campaign for Justice on Tobacco Fraud, urging them to make public health remedies essential objectives of their health care cost recovery lawsuits against the tobacco industry.More than 130 prominent Canadians, including the heads of health agencies and professions, deans of public health schools and professors of law, backed the release with their support.Doctors, as gatekeepers of public health and first-hand witnesses to the adverse impacts of smoking to their patients, are critical to moving the campaign along, said Mahood.“Certainly we want doctors (and other healthcare professionals) across the country to participate, write to us, express their support, it’s extremely important that physicians be a part of this,” he said.“Nine provinces have filed cost recovery lawsuits with claims to date exceeding $110 billion,” said Richard Schabas, former Ontario chief medical officer of health in a news release at the campaign launch. “But the financial losses, although massive, are dwarfed by the devastation caused to public health by the industry’s predatory behaviour.”The suits have dragged out for years, in part because the tobacco companies can afford to raise ``a wall of flesh'' in the form of private lawyers willing to file motions and fight to the Supreme Court of Canada over and over.Mahood said he has no problem with the slow pace, saying the provinces have shown persistence in their fight with the tobacco industry.``The province of British Columbia has been to the Supreme Court two or three times and they've won every time,'' he said.What the campaign wants is a new emphasis in the fight.``These lawsuits should be about much more than money,'' said Rob Cunningham, a senior policy analyst with the Canadian Cancer Society.``We applaud these lawsuits, but want the attorneys general and health ministers involved to put justice and public health at the top of their lists of desired outcomes for their litigation.''Mahood said part of any eventual settlement should be used to finance a public heath trust to operate at arm's length from governments. He said an independent body like that can undertake the tough anti-smoking and public health campaigns that politicians might shy away from.He also wants the legal actions to force disclosure of tobacco industry documents.“We believe that the public disclosure of tobacco industry documents should be a priority objective of Canada’s attorneys general, a remedy ignored in the smuggling settlements,” said Flory Doucas, co-director of the Quebec Coalition for Tobacco Control. “The public disclosure in the United States of 40 million pages of tobacco industry documents is considered by health interests around the world to be one of the great achievements in tobacco control of the last century. Governments must make public disclosure a non-negotiable demand.”In 1976, Mahood became the founding executive director of the Non-Smokers Rights Association, which led the fight for smoking bans across the country.The legal battle against big tobacco is the next challenge, he said.For more on the campaign and to read the letter to attorneys general, click here

Doctor support wanted: New campaign urges focus shift to public health remedies as key to provincial anti tobacco suits

Register for free access or login.

Related Topics

Business Topic