Pro-death, anti-choice lobby sides with the earthquake

I mentioned earlier how little use 'public health professionals' were during the pandemic.  

 

Let's not forget that these 'public health' academics spent the only genuine public health crisis of their lifetimes complaining about pubs being used as vaccination centres and whining about businesses donating food to the hungry and medical equipment to hospitals. Rarely has the chasm between public health and 'public health' been illustrated so starkly.

I had barely pressed 'publish' when I saw this story about anti-smoking activists trying to get the Turkish government to turn down a €1.8 million donation from Phillip Morris International for humanitarian aid after the recent earthquake.

 

Activists fume at tobacco industry for donating to earthquake-hit Turkey

The European anti-tobacco lobby has urged the international community to help earthquake-hit Turkey avoid a €1.8 million donation from Phillip Morris International (PMI) highlighting “hidden” lobbying activities. For its part, PMI rejected the accusations saying it’s money to help people in need.

On 15 February, PMI offered €1.8 million “to support immediate humanitarian aid and long-term recovery assistance” after an earthquake hit Turkey and neighbouring Syria causing thousands of deaths.

However, the move triggered a strong reaction from the anti-tobacco lobby.

 

What is this lobbying and how does this group know about it if it is hidden? No details are forthcoming in the article. Is it possible that these people are saying the first thing that comes to their head again?

“The tobacco control community in Turkey is concerned about the recent corporate social responsibility launch by Phillip Morris International about extending earthquake aid to Turkey”, Dr Elif Daglu from the Turkish Coalition on Tobacco or Health to the European Network for Smoking and Tobacco Prevention (ENSP) said in a statement.

Yes, that's the real concern in Turkey at the moment, isn't it? The word you're looking for, Dr Elif, is "thank you".

 

PMI employs a lot of people in Turkey and has a lot of money. It is understandable and commendable that it is helping the relief effort. What, I wonder, is the 'tobacco control community' doing to help?

 

Such donations from the tobacco industry constitute a breach of Article 5.3 of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, to which Turkey is a party, he added.

 

That is just a lie. Why is that people who have made a career out of hating smokers are able to lie with impunity?

Contacted by EURACTIV, ENSP Secretary General Cornel Radu-Loghin said Turkish citizens “asked our organisation and other organisations to do whatever is possible to convince the Turkish government not to accept the tobacco industry money”.

 

Imagine being such a wretched human being that you spend your time trying to prevent humanitarian relief after an earthquake. It's difficult to think of a way of sinking any lower and yet this - for want of a better word - person is proud of it.

 

ESNP encourages the public health community to donate to the WHO foundation and the BTF relief fund, managed by the Turkish diaspora.

But they won't, will they? They will expect the government to do it for them, as usual.

 

ENSP claims that PMI and other tobacco industry organisations are using their social responsibility programmes, including donations, to lobby governments and to “clean their image”.

 

As with the generosity of the food, alcohol and tobacco industries during the pandemic, the only time we hear about these donations is when moral busybodies go to the media to whine about them. If it's a way of "cleaning their image", it is one that relies on 'public health' bottom-feeders publicising it. If it wasn't for them, no one would ever hear about these acts of charity!

 

“PMI and others are conducting an intensive campaign to legalise the sales and marketing, as well as probably their manufacturing, of novel tobacco and nicotine products in the Turkish market,” ESNP said.

It is no surprise that these parasitic fanatics are opposed to safer alternatives to smoking. Pro-earthquake and pro-smoking. It's all in a day's work for them.

 

E-cigarettes and heated tobacco are banned outright in Turkish thanks to these people. Turkey was supposed to be the golden boy of tobacco control. It did everything the WHO wanted and even got a WHO award for tobacco control, but it has all been a miserable failure. And smokers who want to switch to a vastly safer alternative are banned from doing so.

Way to go, guys! Which pro-death policy will you be adopting next?