Tobacco scientist uproar flares
"We've submitted a letter to the academic body asking them to rethink their choice because the low-tar cigarette Xie has been working on is totally pseudo science," said Xu Guihua, deputy director of the Chinese Association on Tobacco Control. "They've received the letter and said they would process it according to the rules," she told China Daily on Thursday. After the academic body announced online on Saturday that Xie, deputy director of China National Tobacco Corp's Zhengzhou Tobacco Research Institute, who specializes in refining low-tar cigarettes, was elected to be an academician, criticism against him and the country's most prestigious academic body has not stopped. An online writer surnamed Liu was the first to raise questions, just two hours after the announcement.
His objection was later echoed by health experts and the general public, non-smokers and smokers alike, said Yang Gonghuan, head of the China Tobacco Control Office under the Chinese Center for Diseases Control and Prevention. "I've smoked low-tar cigarettes for a few years, because I thought they do less harm to my health," said Liu Bin, 28, in Beijing. "I feel cheated to learn that they also kill." The issue of "smoking affecting health" has long been known worldwide, and reducing the harm of cigarettes is the biggest topic facing the tobacco industry, Xie Jianping told the Zhengzhou-based Dahe Daily right after being elected to the academy. "We are striving to minimize the health hazards to smokers while satisfying their demand for tobacco products," he said.
That statement, said Yang, seems to show Xie somewhat recognizes tobacco's health hazards. Xie is not the first in the tobacco industry to receive such an honor. In 1997, Zhu Zunquan, Xie's predecessor, was elected by the Chinese Academy of Engineering, becoming the first to represent the tobacco industry in the academic body, which advises the government. Starting in the early 1950s, China's tobacco industry was facing recurrent shortages of tobacco leaves for more than 10 years. Zhu, now 92, who had just received his master's degree in US at the time, returned to China and researched and developed technologies such as winter tobacco planting, tobacco alternatives, and low-tar cigarettes, which are said to have helped the industry prosper.
"Zhu's election made no splash in the society back then, nothing like the situation today," said Yang Gonghuan, who also signed the letter sent to the academic body. "The change mirrors increased public awareness of tobacco control," she said. "We are not sure if the letter will bring any change or not, but by our sending it, the public will be properly informed that low-tar cigarettes don't do less harm and the whole thing is actually a big lie by the industry," she said. Sarah England, a tobacco control specialist with the World Health Organization representative office in China, agreed, citing accepted scientific findings such as that almost 50 percent of long-term chain smokers will die from smoking-related diseases like lung cancer. "Low-tar cigarettes, a response by the industry to the finding in the 1960s that smoking could kill, don't reduce the harm at all. They are just intended to mislead the public with the hype," she said.