Features

This also is the first campaign in Myanmar to feature the dramatic testimonial stories of real tobacco victims - four men who contracted oral cancer because of their betel quid chewing habit. The six-week campaign was developed with technical assistance from Vital Strategies and will be broadcast for six weeks on national television and radio channels in Myanmar.

The Addis Ababa’s campaign will focus on the severe consequences of speeding, while bolstering enforcement efforts in the city to save lives.

The campaign prominently featured the stories of two tobacco victims and the number of the Ministry of Health’s national quit smoking telephone line (“quitline”). Initial analysis suggests that the number of daily calls to the national quitline doubled while the campaign was being broadcast.

Shanghai’s campaign will run through November and focus on seat belts as a life-saving mechanism that can dramatically reduce the likelihood of death and injury in a crash. The public service announcement (PSA) for the campaign conveys the message, “seat belts save lives for drivers and passengers, always wear a seat belt.”

In both countries, nearly one in five male deaths and close to one in ten female deaths (9.4 percent in the Philippines and 8.1 percent in Indonesia) are related to tobacco use. In Indonesia, over 53 million adults and more than 2 million children use tobacco each day. In the Philippines, over 15 million adults and more than half a million children use tobacco each day.

Vital Strategies joins other tobacco control advocates in urging the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate BAT and its subsidiaries for possible violations of the anti-bribery and accounting provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).