By Sanjay Suri
LONDON, Apr 20 2004 (IPS)

The British American Tobacco (BAT) is making products which cause about 750,000 premature deaths around the world every year, a new report says.

The report ‘BAT’s Big Wheeze’ accuses the company of an "appalling health, environmental and development record" in advance of its annual general meeting Wednesday.

The report by the campaign group Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), leading development charity Christian Aid, and the environmental pressure group Friends of the Earth looks at BAT’s record in Britain, Brazil, Kenya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Russia and Uganda.

"Five million people die from smoking in the world each year," the report says. "BAT has a 15 percent share of the total tobacco market and sells 792 billion cigarettes a year under more than 300 brand names. By the year 2020 the number of deaths from smoking is expected to double to ten million. Seven million of these will be in developing countries where health services are already under-resourced and over-stretched."

The report says BAT is "damaging the health of rural communities in Brazil and Kenya through encouraging the use of dangerous pesticides, in many cases without proper protection."

It accuses the company of "flooding Pakistan and Russia with advertising and sponsorship designed to addict a new generation of young people to cigarettes."

It accuses BAT of lying about the health effects of cigarette smoke in claiming that there is no convincing evidence that environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) exposure increases the risk of non-smokers developing lung cancer or heart disease.

BAT spokesman David Betteridge called the report a publicity stunt. "They have spent months going back through their own archives, and there is nothing they have suggested here that they have not said before, and we’ve disputed."

The ASH activists have "declined numerous requests for meetings with us," Betteridge told IPS. He said BAT was not given an advance copy of the 25-page report.

The BAT spokesman disputed several of the claims in the report. "Our advertising in Russia is not aimed at under-age people," he said. "We don’t do that, and besides, it’s against the law."

Betteridge said the company was not planning a campaign at Russian women either. "We are not persuading women to smoke," he said. "More women are working in Russia, they are doing more of the things that men do. We don’t set out to get them to smoke."

Betteridge added: "We do not want to persuade anyone to smoke. We did not invent smoking. All we say is that if people want to buy a cigarette, we’d like them to buy ours."

Ian Willmore from ASH said this is like someone saying "it is okay to pick up a machine-gun and shoot someone, and then say he is not responsible because he didn’t invent the machine-gun."

BAT has not refuted ASH claims "because they’re true," he told IPS. "Now BAT is trying to find new markets so that they can go and kill more people. The tobacco trade is the most disgraceful there is. In the arms trade you don’t have to kill someone if you buy a gun. But smoking kills."

BAT has meanwhile reported operating profits for 2003 of 5 billion dollars, the report says. It says BAT directors are paid huge sums for their activities. Chief executive officer Martin Broughton receives 4.3 million dollars a year.

"Top Tory politician Kenneth Clarke MP is paid 225,000 dollars a year for chairing the company’s committee on corporate social responsibility, and for other duties including helping to develop new markets in countries such as Vietnam."

The report says Broughton’s claims that "corporate social responsibility is integral to our approach to the management of our business globally" is "greenwash, bluewash, and hogwash."

The report demands that the British government change the law to require companies and their directors to take account of social and environmental issues in all their activities.

"A new law on corporate accountability would require BAT to report on the negative impacts of their activities and products around the world, place legal duties on directors to take all reasonable steps to reduce these impacts, and enable affected communities abroad to seek compensation for health damage, human rights violations and environmental impacts in the UK courts," the report says.

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