Smoke signals to the lungs and heart

Health Minister Louis Deguara was shocked, an understatement, at what the president of the hospitality and leisure division of the GRTU - Malta Chamber of Small and Medium Enterprises, Philip Fenech, said about smoking, health and the economy. You can say that again. I have read something similar a long time ago when one of the biggest tobacco companies in the world had stated that cigarettes save an economy millions of dollars in health care - because smokers die early.

The tobacco company argued that savings on health care and pensions far outweigh the cost of looking after smokers who fall ill with lung cancer and heart disease.

Anti-smoking groups condemned the comments made in a report from the company that manufactures a particular brand and controls 80 per cent of the market. The report suggested that the government of the country the study was meant for was saving £100 million because smokers die early.

The document concluded that the economy benefited in various ways from smoking, including through income from excise duty and "the health care cost savings associated due to early mortality". Such savings, the report noted, outweighed the loss of taxes from deceased wage earners and the cost of caring for sick smokers.

Michelle Di Leo, a spokesman for the British Lung Foundation, responded thus: "What will the tobacco company argue next, that we should put people down at 50 because it would save us all a lot of money on health care?"

Smoking causes not only lung cancer, which is one of the main causes of death in the developed world, but also raises the risk of heart disease and fatal heart attacks. In the UK, nearly 35,000 Britons die of lung cancer each year and 90 per cent of such cases are directly linked to smoking.

The tobacco company that drew up the report had not intended to present smoking in a positive light. The report followed attempts by the company to improve its image after being battered by years of high profile lawsuits by smokers suffering from tobacco-related diseases.

A spokesman for the tobacco company said: "It is very unfortunate that this is one aspect of the study that is being focused on. We understand it appears cold but tobacco is a very controversial product".

He said the purpose of the report was to set out the balance of costs and savings and it included many elements such as revenue analysis and tax savings. He added: "We had no intention of trying to present a 'positive' side to smoking to society. It is simply part of the balance".

John Connolly, a spokesman for the anti-smoking group ASH, said: "You could start by picking over this analysis and whether they have included the costs of birth defects and employees absences and things like that. But it's completely irrelevant. Most of what we do is geared to improving the quality of people's lives even if it costs money".

The problem with the report is that it doesn't assume any sort of value of a life. Once you do that, this sort of analysis just falls apart.

Mr Connolly rejected the tobacco firm's argument that smokers were given ample warnings about the dangers of smoking. "Their advertising targets a young audience and it is the duty of the government to protect their citizens," he said.

The report was also heavily criticised by the US Campaign for Tobacco Free kids. In a statement entitled Tobacco Firm Hasn't Changed, the association described the report as powerful evidence that the kinder, gentler tobacco firm depicted in US advertisements is just a wolf in sheep's clothing.

"It's a wolf that has the gall to tell a government that early deaths that result from their products are a good thing," campaign president Matthew Myers said. "The company's cost-benefit analysis of the consequences of smoking represents not only bad economics but also a callous disregard for life," he added.