Tobacco museum blamed for luring minors to light up

A tobacco-themed museum in Shanghai is being blamed for enticing children to light up by hiding the severe health risks linked to smoking.

The China Tobacco Museum, sponsored by the tobacco industry, has had visitors from primary and secondary schools since it opened in 2004, health experts said Wednesday.

But it is being criticized by health professionals and netizens as it is a recommended science and patriotic education base for schoolchildren.

Research released last week by the Shanghai-based Fudan University found that among the 59 university students it organized to tour the museum, less than half considered smoking as "very harmful" after the visit. That compared to 83 percent of them holding that view before the visit.

The percentage of the interviewees who insisted on not taking up smoking also decreased to 75 percent from 82 percent after the museum visit, the research found.

Also, more people bought the tobacco industry's "low tar is low risk" theory after a visit to the museum, it added.

During the visit, few tobacco-related health risks were mentioned and neither were China's tobacco control efforts.

"As university students responded this way, the impact (of the museum) on primary and secondary schoolchildren is tremendous," said Zheng Pinpin, deputy head of Fudan's public health department, and lead organizer of the research.

Built in 2002, the multi-million dollar museum was hailed the "largest tobacco-themed museum in the world," with an exhibition size of 3,500 square meters. It is honored a patriotic education base, a public science education base and an excellent institute of moral education for the minors.

"That's hilarious!" said Wu Yiqun, executive vice director of the anti-smoking advocacy group, Thinktank Research Center for Health Development. "It (the museum) is like a fabulous-looking opium flower."

Wu, who visited the museum for research, said the exhibition bluffed about tobacco companies' contribution to economic growth and state fiscal income while skipping information about deaths caused by smoking and the habit's huge burden on the country's medical care system.

China has the world's largest number of smokers, with more than 300 million, statistics show.

According to China's Ministry of Health, there are at least 69 carcinogenic substances in a cigarette and tobacco consumption killed roughly 1 million people a year. That will rise to 3 million by 2050 if the trend to smoke is not stopped, the ministry warned.

"How can a museum have a say on patriotism if it promotes a product that kills 1 million people a year in this country?" Wu fumed.

Beijing lawyer Huang Jinrong, who specializes in public welfare cases, said legal action can be pursued as the regulation on museum management, issued by the Ministry of Culture, said a facility should promote only ideas, science and technologies helpful for social development.

"Violation can lead to disqualification of the museum by the regulator," Huang said.

The museum is yet to respond to the criticism.