FORMER health minister Khairy Jamaluddin has hit out at Tourism, Arts and Culture Minister Tiong King Sing for seemingly being ignorant about the link between smoking and cancer.

According to Free Malaysia Today, Khairy also questioned Tiong’s competence as a minister, after the Bintulu MP made a scathing attack on him, blaming him for purported defects in the anti-smoking and tobacco control bill introduced by Khairy when he was health minister.

Tiong has told Khairy to blame himself and not other ministers for introducing a flawed bill aimed at making it illegal for those born after 2007 to buy or consume nicotine products.  

“Don’t simply slam ministers who are giving their views on the generational endgame (bill). Please find out more details before you talk,” he said on Facebook today.

Tiong said Khairy should accept the decision that the proposed bill was unconstitutional and unenforceable.

“If this matter is implemented in haste and in the end, there are various weaknesses and criticisms leading to massive public complaints, who is to blame?” he said.

“Ironically, throughout his tenure as health minister, apart from trying to improve his own popularity and image, what has he contributed to our country’s health system?” 

He also said Khairy had failed to consistently prove that cancer is caused by the smoking habit, and even failed to take steps to establish a research centre or related institution to analyse and research further the detailed data of cancer patients in the country. 

In response, Khairy questioned Tiong’s competence and said the minister’s remarks reflected badly on Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim.

“It’s 2023 and there’s still a minister who questions the link between smoking and cancer,” Khairy said in a series of posts on Instagram.

“(This was) said by a member of the Madani cabinet. Honestly, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, what kind of half-past-six ministers have you got?”

Tagging Anwar’s account on Instagram, Khairy said: “You’re only as good as your ministers.”

He also posted a screenshot of an article by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which stated that smoking can cause cancer “almost anywhere” in the body.

“(This is from) the CDC in the US. This is not empty talk in Bintulu coffeeshops,” Khairy said.

He also shared a screenshot of a posting on X by World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus from earlier today in which Ghebreyesus warned the public to think of smoking as a “slow poison for your body”.

The anti-smoking and tobacco control bill, also known as the generational endgame bill, came into recent scrutiny after a report that Attorney-General Ahmad Terrirudin Salleh had deemed a provision in the bill to be unconstitutional, for violating the article on equality before the law. – November 16, 2023.