Settlement lacks `global restraint'

The US tobacco industry may be settling legal actions against it by agreeing to pay $358 billion over 25 years, but "it's not a lot of money. It will not put up the price of a packet of cigarettes a great deal", and smokers will end up paying for it, the Dublin conference was told.

That was the prediction of a leading cancer expert, Dr Nigel Gray, of the European Institute of Oncology in Milan. The 68-page document by the industry admitting the ill-effects of smoking was, he said, "dramatic, though flawed".

Speaking at the conference hosted by the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer, he said the flaws in the settlement were the absence of "global restraint". Advertising restrictions were not as strict as in some countries, notably Scandinavia.

The tobacco industry was in trouble and a great political victory has been secured even if it was "possible to mess-up the results of all that". Britain was set to introduce stringent measures against tobacco while the European Commission may soon adopt the power "to regulate nicotine and tar, and to eradicate advertising in those countries which own most of the world's tobacco production facilities".

The US settlement was a precedent for the rest of the world and the tobacco industry's global credibility was gone. But global failures were evident. There were no restrictions in poorer countries. The use of satellite television targeting China and India, in particular, was of concern.

Prof Peter Boyle, an epidemiologist, said figures showing a slight decline in smoking since 1987 masked the number of young people, particularly females, starting to smoke. "Smoking in many respects represents a great failure of public health. Forty years after the hazards of smoking were established, cigarettes are still responsible for 30 per cent of deaths in Britain and the US," he said.

He was particularly concerned about indications that, after a decline for some years, smoking among young people is increasing. In the US, a survey of UCLA freshmen had shown an increase from 9 to 15 per cent between 1987 and 1996 - back to the 1966 level.

The power of advertising could not be over-estimated, he said.