Tobacco industry funded GHW impact study in Bangladesh

Recently a report has published in an online news portal www.newshour.online based on a study done in Bangladesh on GHW https://newshour.online/…/graphical-health-warnings-cigare/ Apparently, it seems positive to tobacco control. But we want to draw your attention about one critical findings of the study which says that “The survey examined the view of the people on size and location of pictorial warning. 72.3% opined that current pictures are good enough. The respondents also provided opinion on ‘should the picture size be increased more than 50% and should the placement be changed from bottom’. 88.9% of the respondents reported that the tobacco industry may continue using these pictorial health warning and they are in favor of the current label size of 50% and placing in the bottom.”
The findings are quite similar to tobacco industry proposition about the GHW. We all know that Bangladesh has been struggling for last one year to place GHW on top 50% space of tobacco packets according to the tobacco control law instead of current GHW position on the bottom level as per the interim notification from government. To sustain the current style of GHW placement, tobacco industry filed a writ petition using a front group ASH Bangladesh, and now has commissioned a study to generate evidence in favor of it. Interestingly, the study lacks information about the conducting authority.
The story is also shared in the official Facebook page of WHO FCTC https://www.facebook.com/FCTCofficial without any dig into the study. We all should have to be careful to use the findings at national and international level.