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Member states of WHO's Western Pacific region have unanimously agreed on a new action plan to tackle the huge burden of tobacco-related illness in the region. Margaret Harris Cheng reports.
To the surprise and delight of tobacco-control campaigners, a plan to operationalise the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) was passed with barely a murmur of dissent at the WHO's Western Pacific regional meeting held in Hong Kong last month.
Although representatives of three of the world's biggest tobacco producers—China, the USA, and Japan—were present when the plan came up for discussion, only China voiced any misgivings about the plan. “The action plan should offer guidance—it should not be a mandatory requirement for member states”, China's representative told the meeting.
The ease with which the plan was accepted was a surprise because it is considered a radical departure from its predecessors (this is the fifth such plan for the WHO's Western Pacific region). For the first time, the plan sets out objectives for member states and a timeframe (2010—14) in which those objectives should ideally be reached. All member states are expected to attend a progress review in 2012, and be ready and willing to explain what stage they are at with tobacco control and why they have, or have not, achieved their objectives.
It was this, the setting of very specific objectives, that made China somewhat uncomfortable.
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Thailand's reputation as a Southeast Asian country with strong anti-smoking laws faces a direct challenge from the tobacco multinational companies that are due to gather in the Thai capital in November for a major industry congress and exhibition.
The organizers of the cigarette promotion gathering, TABINFO Asia 2009, are not leaving anything to the imagination as to why Bangkok has been chosen as the venue for the Asia-Pacific region's "own dedicated tobacco show".
"The Asia-Pacific region has not escaped the global credit meltdown. But its cigarette market remains more buoyant than elsewhere," declares the Tobacco Reporter trade publication in its
website. "The region remains one of the world's most promising cigarette markets."
Participants are promised an event, which runs from November 11-13, that will feature "The Big Issues. The Big Players", trumpets the conference website. It will offer "a very diverse representation of industry players up and down the supply chain. The expanded list of participants makes this a must-attend event for networking, showcasing, discovering, buying, and selling".
The market opportunities of four countries in the region - Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand - are already being highlighted by the trade publication to swell the number of cigarette enthusiasts for the Bangkok trade show. . . .
The choice of a developing country as a venue for this flagship event for tobacco multinationals comes at a time when the tobacco market in the developed world is shrinking due to a battery of tobacco control policies and the world's dominant cigarette producers are looking to the developing world to boost their fortunes.
This trend is reflected in the places where the tobacco industry has gathered every two years prior to Bangkok. The 2007 tobacco trade fair was held in Sao Paulo, Brazil; in 2005 it was the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur.
Myanmar is asking the Philippines for zero duty access for the exports of tobacco and cigarette products. Similar requests were also filed by Myanmar to Thailand and Malaysia.
The Tariff Commission will conduct a public hearing today on the Myanmar request along with the review of the expiring zero duty rates on imported cement and wheat.
At present, Tariff Commission official said that tobacco and cigarette products are included under the ASEAN Integration System of Preferences and as such ASEAN slapped tobacco with three percent tariff and cigarette at five percent.
The AISP is a scheme where ASEAN 6 gives unilateral import duty exemption to products of export interests to the CLMV ( Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam ).
For the Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (Seatca), smoke is getting into its eyes, so to speak.
It is gravely concerned over the current trend of Asean countries -- home to 125 million smokers -- continuing to be cash cows for the world's largest transnational tobacco companies.
Seatca senior policy advisor Dr Mary Assunta said the industry was seeking more smokers among Asia's young, especially in Indonesia, the region largest cash cow where 46 per cent of Asean's smokers reside, and the fourth largest market in the world.
"While many countries in the region are tightening up tobacco control legislation, the industry has launched an all-out attack, especially in Indonesia," she said in a statement issued by the Bangkok-based organisation today.
She said for Indonesia, the smoking epidemic was a tragedy of colossal proportions as about 200,000 Indonesians die annually from smoke-related diseases and there were now about 60 million smokers, half of whom would die prematurely in the coming years.
"An even bigger tragedy is that the tobacco industry's plan for Indonesia is to increase smoking and tobacco sales in the coming years. Hence, the industry is fighting tobacco control efforts in Indonesia viciously," she said.
Native residents of Hawaii and New Zealand have much higher mortality rates for many cancers than the European peoples who live there. Education on screening programmes, diet, and smoking could help tackle this. The issues are discussed in the first of a series of Reviews on worldwide cancer disparities in the May issue of The Lancet Oncology. . . .
In terms of risk factors, MÄori people are more than twice as likely to be smokers than European New Zealanders, 50% more likely to be obese, and almost three-times as likely to be obese smokers. Native Hawaiians have only a slightly higher smoking incidence than European Hawaiians, but a significantly higher risk of cancer for the same smoking history, suggesting they are more susceptible to the carcinogenic properties of cigarette smoke. Limited tobacco legislation in developing countries means that many Pacific islands are among tobacco companies’ new targets . . .
The authors conclude: "The extent of the differences in outcome due to different extrinsic risk factors, biological factors, or health behaviours is unclear….Advances such as adjuvant chemotherapy for breast, bowel, and lung cancer have improved survival, but data on treatment by ethnicity are lacking, and such treatment might be unequally applied between ethnicities. Evidence exists for a benefit of culturally appropriate education on screening programmes, diet, and smoking, all of which could lower the cancer burden in Polynesian communities."
Efforts to rid the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) of the dangers of smoking will fail unless tobacco control laws, including banning the advertising of products, are enforced with equal zeal throughout the region, anti-tobacco experts said on Thursday. The Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (SEATCA) and the Singapore Health Promotion Board are holding two days of discussions in Singapore focusing on national and regional plans to further regulate tobacco advertising and promotion as part of a global treaty formalized by members of the World Health Organization.
Yes, there are a lot of sick people in this part of the world, many of them ticking time bombs of preventable ill-health who reached this point through a lifetime of cumulative choices.
For those Pacific Islanders who have smoked their way to illness, often on a ride of a pack a day, hospital resources, trained doctors, specialist care, even basic bedding and space are already stretched with those who got there first through overeating, binge-drinking and too little exercise.
It's estimated that three out of every four deaths in the Pacific can be linked to non-communicable, lifestyle diseases.
Unlike death by accident or injury, dying from a lifestyle disease is ironically the most likely way Pacific Islanders will leave this world--and the most preventable. . . .
The Pacific scenario above is becoming an all too common one for islands governments whose health budgets could do with financial injections and more skilled nationals willing to return home from expensive overseas training--and remain there.
Also worrying is the impact on women, making up around half of those affected by lifestyle ills, but still carrying the caregiver and domestic-nurse work when other family members fall sick. Take them out of the equation due to their own ill-health and the impact is a double hit to islands homes. . . .
The stop-smoking lobby has two items in its basket of solutions which other lifestyle diseases don't have. One is an international anti-smoking treaty, known in development jargon as the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, or FCTC. The other is a senator from Palau by the name of Caleb Otto. . . .
And despite his cynicism over corrupt colleagues, Otto believes it is still Pacific leadership that will push action towards the vision of a smoke-free Pacific.
He's not far off the mark. A new post-Pacific Forum Leaders statement on Health delivered in Tonga called for "immediate action to halt and reverse NCDs...through multi-sectoral engagement".
there is no better day to try than Nov. 15, the date of the 31st annual Great American Smokeout.
About 23 percent of active-duty personnel at Yokota use tobacco products, said Maj. PeggyAnn Cain, the flight commander for Health Promotion at Yokota, adding that about one in four airmen use tobacco Air Force-wide. . . .
This year, Yokota’s Health and Wellness Center sent out information to base units about the Smokeout and what they can do to help their personnel kick the habit. Other Air Force bases, as well as military installations worldwide, are conducting similar programs, she said.
The Asia-Pacfic region has the world's fastest growth rate of smoking among children and women, a high-ranking World Health Organization (WHO) official highlighted Thursday, urging the region to implement better smoke-free policies.
"The (Asia-Pacific) region has one third of the world's smokers, the highest percentage of male smokers and the fastest increase of smoking among children and young women," said Shigeru Omi, WHO's director for the Western Pacific, at the 58th WHO Western Pacific Regional Committee meeting held on Jeju Island, South Korea's southernmost island.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) yesterday slammed the tobacco industry for spreading lies about smoking in public places in a bid to counter an increasing number of smoking bans around the world.
The WHO said the tobacco industry had repeatedly "misled and misinformed the public about the health risks and dangers of second-hand tobacco smoke and about the economic impact of smoking bans". . . .
Omi said that to mark this year's World No Tobacco Day, the WHO was honouring individuals and organisations who had helped to create smoke-free environments through policies and research.
Among the recipients of the World No Tobacco Awards in the Western Pacific Region are the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces for supporting quit-smoking services for its soldiers; and doctors Wang Ke-an and Wang Chen, founder and director of the Think Tank Research Centre for Health Development in China, for providing key research for anti-smoking legislation.
Infectious diseases such as SARS and bird flu pose serious threats to Asia-Pacific nations, but these countries must not overlook obesity and tobacco - two major killers already substantially affecting the region, New Zealand's prime minister said Monday.
"Obesity is a time bomb for New Zealand and the Pacific,'' Prime Minister Helen Clark said at the opening of the World Health Organisation's annual regional meeting in Auckland.
She said non-communicable diseases, including those caused by obesity, are plaguing both rich and poor countries across the region. . . .
Clark, a former health minister, also stressed how tobacco control can improve a country's overall health.
New Zealand has banned smoking in bars and all public places over the past two years, and surveys have indicated that 63 percent of smokers themselves approve of the measures.
"Smoking causes utterly preventable death, disease and disability,'' Clark told the delegates.
The largest ever study of smoking in the Asia Pacific Region, and one of the largest smoking studies ever conducted anywhere in the world, has dispelled a long-held myth that smokers in Asian populations are less susceptible than Western populations to the risks of smoking, such as coronary heart disease and stroke.
A paper from the George Institute for International Health on the outcomes of the study, due to be published shortly in the International Journal of Epidemiology, notes that the belief amongst Asian countries that smoking is less harmful to them than to Caucasian populations may contribute to the high prevalence of smoking in Asian countries, the low quitting rates amongst Asian male smokers, and the spread of smoking among Asian women.
Prof. Mark Woodward, Director of the Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the George Institute, who lead the study, points out that "the study, which involved data analysis of almost 500,000 Asians and 100,000 Australasians, shows that smoking poses the same risks to Asian men (and an even greater risk to Asian women) as compared to Western populations. The study also makes clear that there are real benefits to be gained, in terms of huge numbers of lives to be saved, by effectively implementing campaigns in Asia to quit smoking."
"This is particularly so amongst women, where use of tobacco is still spreading worldwide and for whom smoking has the greatest detrimental impact. Therefore, any anti tobacco campaigns in Asia should include messages specifically targeted at women," said Prof. Woodward
Importantly, the study also showed that smoking is an independent risk factor for haemorrhagic stroke, the most common type of stroke in Asia
The customs authorities of several Asian countries agreed Friday to step up their cooperation in the fight against international cigarette smuggling.
At a meeting in Hong Kong, the agencies signed on to the so-called "Project Crocodile," a plan that calls for them to set up systems to monitor suspicious cigarette shipments and share information on such shipments as they cross international borders.
Improved communication and cooperation between the different agencies is "essential to help individual customs administrations to eradicate transnational smuggling syndicates who may be hiding in other jurisdictions," the Hong Kong Customs and Excise Department said in a statement it made on behalf of participants in the gathering.