I think that in any discussion about curing the damages caused by lung cancer, some thought needs to be given to prevention. The foundation that I represent is all about prevention and our main tool for this purpose is litigation.
Right now we have a case pending before the Court of Justice of the European Union, which deals with the corrupted measuring-method prescribed in the Tobacco Products Directive. The tobacco industry has been very successful in completely hijacking this section of the Directive: they designed the testing method and developed the smoking machine that is to be used; basically, they drafted this part of the law, with as a consequence that cigarette smokers effectively inhale two to three times the amounts of tar, nicotine and coal monoxide that is prescribed by the same Directive. We claim that this method is a clear-cut violation of the Directive including human rights protecting health, but at the same time this is also a violation of article 5.3 of the WHO FCTC.
The Rotterdam Court agreed with us that this part of the Directive probably needs a complete overhaul and referred our case to the EU Court.
If you want to know more, contact me or go to our website….
Wanda de Kanter 