Tobacco company wants schools survey for insights into children and teens

A TOBACCO company is trying to use Freedom of Information laws to access taxpayer-funded research into what thousands of Victorian children think about smoking.

British American Tobacco has applied to access data collected by the Cancer Council from school students covering a range of issues, including where they get their cigarettes from, when they started smoking and how they feel about plain packaging.

The Cancer Council’s Todd Harper said the organisation was concerned the information could be misused.

The world’s largest tobacco company has reportedly forced access to survey data gathered by health professionals on school students to fight plain packaging.

“We are doing what we can to ensure that the information that has been collected from school students does remain confidential”.

“If this information were to be used for commercial purposes, for instance to hone or localise tobacco or alcohol marketing and pricing strategies to appeal to the young, provision of such information would be highly detrimental to Victoria’s children”, Mr Harper said.

A British American Tobacco spokesperson has denied the allegations, saying: ‘It’s completely untrue to say that we are interested in this data in order to gain insights into children and teens. “We’ve asked for figures via a normal freedom of information request because we want to find out if plain packaging, a measure introduced without evidence and that directly affects our industry, is having the impact the Australian government claims it is”.

Tobacco giant Phillip Morris worldwide made a similar attempt in 2011 when they used FOI to request Stirling University in the UK hand over all their data on thousands of children who were smokers.

The lawyer fighting to obtain the data on behalf of British American Tobacco is Graeme Johnson, a senior partner at Herbert Smith Freehills.

The British Medical Journal recently published several studies that suggested plain packaging reforms were producing beneficial public health outcomes. “I’m disappointed that the tobacco company wasn’t upfront about its involvement”.

He said governments might need to amend FOI legislation to prevent it being used in this way.