Tag: prevention
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Paradise at risk: recommendations to control tobacco and alcohol industry interference in Pacific Island Countries and Territories
This post was written by Matthew Catanzariti, Jessica Heaney and Oscar Loughnan Tobacco and alcohol represent significant threats to public health. The businesses that manufacture, distribute, and market these products to the public have irreconcilable interests to those that attempt to improve and protect public health. These businesses use coercive techniques, such as lobbying, tactical…
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Strengthening Australia’s smoke and vape-free beach culture (north, and south, of the border)
Keeping beaches smoke and vape-free severs the link between relaxation and nicotine addiction. It says you don’t need to harm your body to enjoy yourself.
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Another step forward for the Pacific Legislative Framework
Pacific Island Countries and Territories have some of the world’s highest rates of health risks. In response, the Public Health Division of the Pacific Community (SPC) has been driving an initiative for tackling the key risk factors: the Pacific Legislative Framework.
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Freedom to protest, public health, and Covid-19
Update: the podcast of the event described below is now available, click here. Recently, a number of protests have taken place on the grounds of The University of Sydney against Commonwealth government education policies. See, for example, here (28 August) and here (14 October). During the latter protest, police were filmed throwing a demonstrator heavily onto…
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Post Covid: alcohol and the night time economy in the Sydney CBD
Sydney’s CBD has been bleak and empty the past few months, especially at night, but coronavirus restrictions in NSW are slowly easing. From 1 June, pubs, clubs, cafes and restaurants can seat up to 50 customers (instead of the previous 10), provided businesses ensure social distancing of one person per 4 square metres, and no…
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Despite industry objections, alcohol and pregnancy warnings will be mandatory in Australia and New Zealand
The food regulator, Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) has finalised the form of the alcohol and pregnancy warning label that will be mandatory on packaged alcohol sold in both countries. Assuming the States do not request a further review, the new warning will be added as an amendment to Standard 1.2.7 of the Food…
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Smoke-free streets and lanes: a growing headache for big tobacco?
Smoke-free Melbourne? One of Melbourne’s quintessential experiences is to stroll its laneways, many lined with restaurants. Smoking here would spoil things for everyone. In 2014, Causeway Lane, a small restaurant strip running between Bourke Street Mall and Little Collins Street, went smokefree. You can read reactions to this smoke-free pilot here. Three more laneways were…
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Breastfeeding rooms in US federal buildings: who would have thought?!
Last year the US watered down a resolution of the World Health Assembly that would have called on States to “protect, promote and support breast-feeding”, and to provide technical support to “halt inappropriate promotion of foods for infants and young children”. A step too far, apparently, given the economic interests of US-domiciled formula companies. See…
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Why the media gets it wrong on obesity
“I’m not overweight”, writes columnist Katrina Grace Kelly in The Australian. “I’m just the helpless pawn of a vicious corporate conspiracy”. Amusing read, but it also illustrates why public health researchers are failing to cut-through with governments and the broader community on obesity. “The ‘obesogenic environment’ is the culprit here, apparently”, Kelly writes, referring to…
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Beyond the “hot tub”: Australia’s runaway obesity epidemic
How sure are you that you won’t lose your feet or toes to diabetes? According to a new report by the Obesity Collective, based at the Charles Perkins Centre at the University of Sydney, obesity in Australia is getting much, much worse. Between 2014-15 and 2017-18, the obesity rate in Australian adults rose from 27.9%…
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Put another Winfield on the Barbie
Having actor Paul Hogan headline Cure Cancer’s “Barbecure” makes no sense to me. Put another shrimp on the barbie, I get it. But so what? Hogan may regret the staggeringly successful “Anyhow, have a Winfield” advertising campaign he headed in the 1970s, but his presence in a cure cancer campaign is inept. It muddies the…
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Update and summary guide to the WHO report: Advancing the right to health: the vital role of law
In September 2018 the World Health Organisation published an Update and Summary Guide to the report Advancing the Right to Health: the Vital Role of Law. [See here for a previous post on the full report]. The summary Guide, like the full report, was a collaboration between the World Health Organisation, International Development Law Organisation,…
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Public health law in the USA: What can Australia learn?
SEMINAR ANNOUNCEMENT: Public Health Law and Health Leadership in the United States: What can Australia learn? Thursday 19 July, 6.00-7.30pm, Sydney Law School In 2016, life expectancy at birth in the United States fell for the second year in a row. Since his inauguration in 2017, President Trump and his administration have taken a number…
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Trump: the war on breastfeeding
The New York Times reports that US officials threatened to unleash trade sanctions and withdraw military aid from Ecuador unless it withdrew a resolution at May’s World Health Assembly calling on governments to “protect, promote and support breast-feeding”. The article is worth reading in its entirety. As the father of a currently breastfeeding infant, I…
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What becomes of a country that cannot protect its young?
March for our lives, Washington DC, 24 March 2018 It’s too early to say if the grassroots social movement initiated by students who survived the gun massacre at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida will be successful in nudging America’s gun laws in the direction of rationality and evidence. After killing 17…
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A Foundation for a smoke-free world…funded by a cigarette multinational: more smoke and mirrors?
The Swiss like butter on both sides of their toast. Headquartered in Lausanne, half an hour’s train ride from the World Health Organisation in Geneva, you’ll find the headquarters of the world’s most profitable tobacco company, Philip Morris International (PMI). Makers of Marlboro and other global brands. A few years ago, at the end of…
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“Party like it’s payday!” urges Diageo Australia (before your welfare cheque runs out?)
It looks like Diageo Australia is at it again. No, this time they’re not advertising Bundy Rum to a 3 year old. Instead, they’re urging Western Australians to “Party like it’s payday” – hoisting ads for Captain Morgan Original Spiced Gold Rum around the Perth suburbs, including right outside a Centrelink office. Whatever were they…
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California raises the minimum purchase age for cigarettes and e-cigarettes
Last week was a big week for those who think the law should have a role in helping to reduce the 6 million deaths caused each year by tobacco. First, tobacco taxes In 2013, the Rudd government announced a 12.5% increase in the tobacco excise to take effect over 4 years: 1 Dec 2013; 1…
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A short review of the NSW Government’s “one-punch” alcohol control reforms
In February 2016, former High Court Justice the Hon. Ian Callinan AC QC was appointed by the NSW Government to review the effectiveness of the “lockouts” and the 3am liquor sales cessation period on the Sydney CBD entertainment precinct, the Kings Cross precinct, and potential displacement areas. Mr Callinan will also consider the impact of…
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ABAC Complaints Panel won’t consider complaint about Diageo Australia spamming 3 year-old with Bundaberg Rum video-advert
It’s official. Spamming children with alcohol advertisements does not breach the ABAC Code, the alcohol industry’s swiss-cheese voluntary standard for alcohol advertising regulation. The Chief Adjudicator of the ABAC Complaints Panel has ruled that the Panel will not consider a complaint about Diageo Australia spamming a 3 year-old with a Bundaberg Rum video-advert when she…
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