1. Provide the title of your story or series and the names of the journalists involved.
Two-Cent Chewing Tobacco Hooks Kids, Makes India Oral Cancer Capital by Adi Narayan.
2. List date(s) this work was published or aired.
November 30, 2010 on the Bloomberg news wire and website
3. Provide a brief synopsis of the story or stories, including any significant findings.
The story shows how a McDonald's version of a 400-year old tobacco-containing snack has become widely popular and has made India the oral cancer capital of the world. Sales of chewing tobacco in the second-most-populous nation are predicted to reach $9 billion by 2014 and doctors are finding evidence that the product, known locally as gutka, can give users cancer in as little as five years. Narayan's exclusive reporting highlights the human cost of gutka and shows how gutka's affordability, questionable advertising and weak regulatory control have ensnared millions of nicotine addicts. Use of smokeless tobacco in school children is rising even in the U.S., and experts caution that the situation in India could be a harbinger for other countries as tobacco companies respond to smoking bans with products that are sucked, snorted and chewed.
4. Explain types of documents, data or Internet resources used. Were FOI or public records act requests required? How did this affect the work?
The story was based on data collected from a number of sources. Cancer incidence and tobacco-prevalence data was obtained from databases from the United Nations and the Indian government which were available on the Internet. Some proprietary data from market research firms and unpublished patient data from hospitals and research institutes was also used. Apart from this, Narayan went through more than 15 medical studies published in scientific journals and at least 10 reports from the World Health Organization and government agencies, most of which were found on the Internet.
5. Explain types of human sources used.
Narayan visited several gutka sellers around Mumbai, spoke to users and visited the Tata Memorial Hospital in Mumbai, which is Asia's largest cancer treatment facility to meet face-to-face with patients. He spoke on the phone and in person with at least 10 doctors and interviewed 40 researchers, government officials, anti-tobacco campaigners and United Nations officials in seven countries. He also met face-to-face with a gutka manufacturer and the man who others credit with naming and selling the product for the first time in India.
6. Results (if any).
As a result of the story, published in the Boston Globe, Korea Herald and three other newspapers, India's highest court banned the sale of gutka in plastic pouches as of March 2011.
7. Follow-up (if any). Have you run a correction or clarification on the report or has anyone come forward to challenge its accuracy? If so, please explain.
There were no complaints of errors and no corrections.
8. Advice to other journalists planning a similar story or project.
The idea for the story came from repeatedly seeing empty gutka packets strewn across sidewalks in Mumbai, and from visiting hospitals and talking to doctors and patients about the harmful effects of this product. I approached the story as a historical narrative and reached out to people who've seen the industry over several decades. These unofficial historians provided the color that helped to bring the story to life. I would urge reporters to do the same, especially at the early stages of a large story. As any reporter working in India would be aware, finding examples is easy enough but getting the data and tying solid science to a hypothesis can be very difficult. I would urge reporters to locate watertight data as early as possible in a big-picture story as that can probably be the most time-consuming and difficult element to obtain. There is also a tendency here for experts in one field (practicing doctors for instance) to comment on something outside their domain (like global epidemiology and advanced molecular biology). While it's tempting to take their word for it, one has to seek out many experts and obtain detailed reports that are based on empirical science and published literature.