| FOR IMMEDIATE
RELEASE: April 24, 2002
Contact:
Anna White, Essential Action (cell: +1 651-492-5551)
Dozens of U.S. Activists to Expose Company’s Global Trail of Death, Disease, and Deceit at Company’s Annual Shareholders Meeting in Richmond, Virginia
Over twenty-five tobacco control activists involved with Essential Action’s Global Partnerships for Tobacco Control (GPTC) program, will be present to send a strong message to the company that, until it puts people before profits, no name change will be able to alleviate the company’s massive global public relations problem. GPTC matches U.S. tobacco control groups with counterparts around the world. GPTC groups from Minnesota, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia, along with other U.S. activists, will hold a demonstration outside the shareholders’ meeting to denounce Philip Morris’ egregious practices around the world. Some of the company’s serious transgressions in the last year include: issuing a report in the Czech Republic which concluded that smoking is good for the economy because smokers die earlier, thus saving the government money on pensions, healthcare, and housing; featuring a pregnant woman on a billboard advertisement for L & M cigarettes (Ukraine); and sponsoring a promotional concert in Niger that attracted thousands of teenagers and at which free cigarettes were distributed to youth as young as 10. In the last year, evidence of the company’s involvement in cigarette smuggling around the world has also been introduced in court and reported on by the media. Inside the meeting, Eva Kralikova of the Czech Republic, well-known for exposing Philip Morris’ now infamous "Czech" report, will demand Philip Morris take responsibility for its misdeeds outside of the U.S. Several other GPTC participants plan to present statements on behalf of their global partners in Sri Lanka, Niger, Romania, and India. The April 25 meeting is also significant, because Louis Camilleri will officially replace Geoffrey Bible as president and chief executive officer. In the 1990’s, Camilleri led the aggressive expansion of Philip Morris’ tobacco business in Central and Eastern Europe. This year also marks Philip Morris' 100th anniversary. During the past century, tobacco killed 100 million people around the world. If the global tobacco industry is not reigned in, it will kill a mind-boggling 1 billion people this century. By 2030, the World Health Organization projects that tobacco will kill 10 million people annually. This is equivalent to 70 planes crashing each and every day of the year. “Philip Morris’ deliberate and aggressive promotion of its highly addictive, lethal products is nothing less than a global massacre, on a scale that humankind has never before experienced,” says Anna White, Coordinator of GPTC, “A new name cannot wash the company of the blood that stains its reputation and profits.” U.S. GPTC groups consider their presence at the shareholders meeting an act of solidarity with their colleagues abroad, many of whom are based in low-income countries with few or no financial resources to counter wealthy, powerful multinational tobacco corporations' sophisticated marketing campaigns and rampant abuse of political influence. Adriana Menéndez, an MD with the Sindicato Médico of Uruguay sums up the sentiments of many in low-income countries, “We denounce Philip Morris attempt to clean its name – a name stained with the blood and tears of its victims and their relatives – with a name change. A new name does nothing to diminish the load of immorality, corruption, perversion and lies upon which the company has constructed its global economic empire.” (More quotes from around the world) ### |