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The World Health Organization has invited the director of Washington state's smoking prevention program to speak at an international conference.
The meeting later this week in Tunisia focuses on effective prevention strategies. Terry Reid, the Washington program's director since March 2001, is the only person from the United States invited to the conference.
Since Washington began its stop smoking program, adult smoking has decreased by 30 percent and youth smoking has dropped by about half.
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Conclusion Page 244
While this inquiry was not exhaustive, it has demonstrated beyond doubt the magnitude of tobacco companies’ continuing opposition to WHO tobacco programs. The tobacco companies’ long-secret documents offer a window of insight not only into many of their surreptitious activities, but also into the strategies and attitudes that guide their conduct. To some, these revelations may come only as confirmation of long-held suspicions. To many, however, they will be eye opening.
But the significance of this inquiry may lie less in what it reveals about the past, than in what it suggests for the present and future. As WHO embarks on a global discussion of tobacco and health, and of the proposed Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, this inquiry invites a reassessment of the way WHO and its member states view the global epidemic of tobacco use.
At the most fundamental level, this inquiry confirms that tobacco use is unlike other threats to global health. Infectious diseases do not employ multinational public relations firms. There are no front groups to promote the spread of cholera. Mosquitoes have no lobbyists. The evidence presented here suggests that tobacco is a case unto itself, and that reversing its burden on global health will be not only about understanding addiction and curing disease, but, just as importantly, about overcoming a determined and powerful industry. If this inquiry contributes to that understanding, the committee of experts will have succeeded in its work.
上午，卫生部副部长黄洁夫会见了来华参加中国控烟协会第四届会员大会暨控烟高层论坛的世界卫生组织（WHO）无烟行动主任贝彻博士（Dr.DouglasBettcher），双方就如何加强在控烟领域的合作，进一步推动我国烟草控制工作交换了意见。
The World Health Organization announced that they have established a new limit for indoor radon gas. The new maximum radon level is 2.7. This is a 32% reduction from the previously accepted "action level" of 4.0. http://www.mitigationsystem.com/releases/release/7166404/19723.htm
This new limit was prompted by a recent compilation of studies submitted by scientists throughout the World which conclusively point to radon as the second leading cause of lung cancer next to smoking. Based on the new 2.7 threshold, millions of homes will require repairs to reduce the levels of the gas.
Each year, hundreds of thousands of deaths throughout the World are caused by exposure to radon. This new plan of action by the World Health Organization will save millions of lives.
It is not going to be easy for India to meet its commitment to the World Health Organisation (WHO) to bring down tobacco production by 50 per cent in the next one decade. Tobacco output in India is estimated to be more than 700 million kg in 2009-10 due to higher price realisation last year and scanty rainfall.
“We have estimated the tobacco production at 700 million kg in 2009-10 as against 690 million kg in 2008-09,” said J Suresh Babu, chairman, Tobacco Board.
However, the board is concerned over the fact that the production may even surpass its current estimate as more and more farmers in major tobacco growing regions such as Andhra Pradesh are opting for tobacco in the wake of higher prices.
Due to spurt in global demand following low tobacco production in leading growing countries such as Europe last year, flue-cured virginia (FCV) tobacco farmers received a price of Rs 108 a kg in 2008-09 as against Rs 84 a kg in 2007-08. Interestingly, 1.5 million kg of tobacco was auctioned in Karnataka recently and the price was quoted at Rs 113 a kg.
IRELAND SHOULD continue to increase the price of cigarettes to put them out of reach of young people, according to a senior policy adviser to the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Dr Judith Mackay said yesterday that putting an extra €2 on a packet of cigarettes would be “spot on”, discounting claims by the tobacco industry that increasing the price of tobacco only led to smuggling and therefore it should be avoided.
“If you have to pick one single thing to bring the tobacco epidemic down and particularly reduce smoking among young people, it has to be taxation . . . it’s a simple matter of affordability,” she added.
She said the tobacco industry was behind a lot of tobacco smuggling to evade tax and flooded markets with cheap cigarettes so children could use them.
Billions of smuggled and counterfeit cigarettes – enough to circle the Earth more than 60 times – are costing increasingly indebted governments some US$20-40 billion a year worldwide in lost taxes, British American Tobacco said today.
Up to 660 billion cigarettes worldwide are estimated to pass through the hands of smugglers, counterfeiters and local tax evaders every year. In packs of 20 laid end to end, the cigarettes would circle Earth more than 60 times or stretch to the moon and back almost four times.
British American Tobacco supports a new World Health Organisation (WHO) treaty being debated this week in Geneva - the Protocol on Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products - which aims to combat the problem through stronger international co-ordination and enforcement. The Protocol acknowledges that legitimate tobacco industry interests are damaged by illicit trade along with those of governments.
世卫组织４日发表专家文章说，与文字相比，图片更加引人注目，能造成更大的情感冲击。因此，生动反映不利健康影响的附图警语比单纯的文字警语有效得多。在文盲率较高或识字率较低的发展中国家，附图警语尤为重要。此外，一些没有掌握官方语言的移民或少数民族也可能看不懂单纯的文字警语。
The health implications of smoking have been reiterated with the World Health Organization (WHO) putting the number of Nigerians that are likely to die from tobacco-related diseases in the next 10 years at 35 million.
Since 1962, there have been damning reports about the health hazards of smoking. For example, the Royal College of Physicians attributes cigarette smoking to cause lung cancer and bronchitis. According to the College, cigarette smoking is the most likely cause of the recent world-wide increase in deaths from lung cancer." This was the submission of the counsel to the Ogun State Government, Barrister Bashir Ramon during a one-day enlightenment workshop by the Environmental Rights Action and the Coalition Against Tobacco in Abeokuta.
He spoke just as participants at the workshop commended the state government for litigation against tobacco companies in Nigeria. Quoting from the WHO, Barrister Ramon also disclosed that 175 million people in the world may also die as a result of related diseases.
"It is alarming, sad and must be prevented. With 175 million people in the world who may likely die of the same related diseases, our government should not fold her arms and allow the havoc to continue," he said. He also told participants that out of four Africans, there is a Nigerian, meaning that in the total population of Africans; (175 million), Nigeria has one quarter of it. "If you look at this, you would discover that Nigeria has a greater number of people facing the terrible effect of tobacco smoking," he noted. Shedding light on why the state government had gone to court, Ramon said: "We are not in court for monetary sake. We are in court for the betterment of our people and future of our young ones who are innocently smoking their future."
By the time you have finished reading this sentence, within only a few seconds, two more people in the world will have lost their lives as a result of smoking-related diseases.
Fortunately, Turkey has become a model for those trying to fight against this avoidable but significant factor in death worldwide, according to Dr. Toker Ergüder from the World Health Organization (WHO). When traveling in the francophone parts of Europe, you may hear the saying “fumer comme un Turc” (to smoke like a Turk) much like the English phrase “to smoke like a chimney” to describe someone who smokes too much. . . .
In an interview with Sunday's Zaman, Ergüder said there has been an immense transformation in Turkey concerning the state's approach towards tobacco products and their deadly effects on users. “With this huge change in the way Turkey undertakes its collective campaign to reduce tobacco usage in the country, it has become an example not only for developing countries but also for developed ones, too,” he said, commending the state's policies.
The World Health Organization has launched a new global initiative to try to ensure that non-communicable diseases urgently get given much greater priority in the health and development policies of poor nations and on global aid agendas.
At present non-communicable diseases such as heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, and chronic lung disease are responsible for about 35 million deaths each year, or 60% of all deaths worldwide, says WHO. Of these, 80% occur in low and middle income nations.
All four diseases share the same risk factors: tobacco use, unhealthy diets, physical inactivity, and harmful use of alcohol, say WHO experts.
Noncommunicable diseases such as heart attacks, strokes, cancers, diabetes, respiratory diseases and common injuries account for the vast majority of all global deaths, but because they are not yet included as priorities in the global development agenda, donors and international organizations have yet to pledge support to help developing countries address these leading health problems.
As the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) meets in Geneva this week to focus on global public health commitments, many health and development leaders will call upon the international development community to integrate indicators on noncommunicable diseases and injuries into the core Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) monitoring and evaluation system.
To support these efforts, WHO today announced the launch of a network of leading organizations and experts from around the world. The network will scale up action to combat noncommunicable diseases, strengthen global partnerships and help governments plan and implement measures to reduce the burden of these diseases.
The new Global Noncommunicable Disease Network (NCDnet) will unite currently fragmented efforts by bringing the cancer, cardiovascular, diabetes and respiratory communities together with tobacco control, healthy diets and physical activity advocates.
The tobacco industry knows that motion pictures are one of humanity’s most common entertainment experiences. In a world with two billion urban dwellers (12), cinemas sold eight billion movie tickets in 2006, an all-time high. Of these, 20% were sold in the United States and Canada; however, 80% of admissions and 63% of box office revenues were in other countries (13). Based on figures from exhibitors, distributors and market analysts, the world spends an estimated US$ 100 billion a year on cinema tickets and on legitimate or pirated video copies of films. Roughly 30% is spent on single viewings in theatres, while 70% is spent on videos that can be viewed multiple times. Motion pictures are increasingly viewed outside movie theatres and distributed through other channels. The movie medium is extended by the Internet, TV, DVDs and other video access, reaching widely across cultures and economies. Thus, exposure to film content is vastly underestimated by movie theatre attendance data . . .
In an analysis of more than 1200 US-produced live action films – nearly the entire body of feature films released to theatres both by major studios and by independent producers in 1999- 2006 – tobacco imagery permeated both youth- rated (G/PG/PG-13) and adult-rated (R) movies, with more than three quarters of US-made movies featuring tobacco imagery (14). More specifically, close to 90% of all R-rated movies included smoking, while smoking appeared in three quarters of movies rated PG-13 and was found in more than a third of movies rated G or PG. Altogether, live action movies of all ratings produced in the United States between 1999 and 2006 contained approximately 8400 tobacco incidents.iii
Of these incidents, 68% were in movies rated R; 29% in movies rated PG-13; and 3% in movies rated G or PG. (See Box 1 for an explanation of the rating system.) There was no significant trend in tobacco incidents per film, either up or down, over the period 1999–2006. . . .
Movies, especially those made in the United States, are a major source of viewer identification with celebrities. They can encapsulate dreams, craft hopes and help viewers escape the tedium of everyday life. For the tobacco industry, films can provide an opportunity to convert a deadly consumer product into a cool, glamorous and desirable lifestyle necessity. The Marlboro Man is a powerful salesman, but even he lacks the draw of popular historical and contemporary movie stars from Hollywood, Bollywood and other film production centres. In contrast to traditional advertising, film stars provide indirect but nonetheless powerful information about the “benefits” of smoking.
Experimental and observational studies (27,31) show that cigarette smoking in films can influence young peoples’ beliefs about social norms for smoking, beliefs about the function and consequences of smoking and their personal intention to smoke. The presentation of smoking in films does not reflect reality. In reality, smoking tends to be highest among lower socioeconomic groups. In films, the prevalence of smoking depicted by characters, in particular among the higher-socioeconomic characters frequently portrayed by lead actors, is higher than the prevalence of smoking by comparable people in the general population (40). The real health consequences of smoking are rarely shown (40). Young people, especially, look to those celebrities for reassurance about their choices in fashion and behaviour. As they formulate their lifestyles, the film medium may provide a particularly attractive resource to promote these choices. . . .
When developing policy, both national and global perspectives should be considered. Well designed, evidence-based public health policy will improve population health both nationally and globally. The primary objective of actions to reduce smoking imagery in the movies is:
To substantially and permanently reduce children’s and adolescents’ exposure to tobacco imagery in movies.
Only options that meet this objective would then be evaluated for political feasibility, legality, sustainability and cost. The principles that guide such evaluation include:
• Principle 1: Seek “upstream” solutions
Policy should motivate change in the film industry’s behaviour so as to reduce harmful content at the source (“upstream”) instead of burdening the adolescents in the audience and their parents with taking some sort of protective measures (“downstream”). Films with smoking imagery are causally associated with smoking initiation, and therefore industries that profit from marketing these health risks should be responsible for making them safe. . . .
In May 2007, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) proposed adding descriptors such as “pervasive smoking” or “glamorized smoking” to some ratings, absent a “mitigating context” (69).xiv Such content descriptors fail to convey the harmful effect of the film’s smoking imagery. It is the cumulative exposure to smoking in films – not the amount of smoking in a particular film – that best predicts the effect on adolescents. The recommended approach is to precede any film with tobacco imagery, in any distribution channel, with an effective anti-tobacco spot message. . . .
The Indian experience demonstrates the importance of exposing and neutralizing counter- strategies from the tobacco industry or its surrogates and allies. Successful implementation requires not only judicial intervention but also raising public awareness of the serious harm resulting from onscreen promotion of tobacco. The analytic studies in 2003 and 2004– 5 clearly established that, like the US films dominating screens in other countries, Indian films were depicting more tobacco imagery following implementation of the TCA and thus influencing young people to smoke. National interventions in India, as in the United States, can thus have global impacts in preventing smoking initiation. . . .
Experience shows that whenever tobacco advertising and promotion is restricted in one medium, it migrates to another. Tobacco appearances in films accelerated in the United States while tobacco advertising in other media was being restricted, and in India a similar process occurred after tobacco advertising in other media was prohibited. Because smoking on screen is uniquely vivid and because young people see so many films so often, its promotional effect on smoking initiation is striking. Any country seeking to ban or restrict tobacco advertising and promotion must address the issue of smoking on screen or risk having its public health efforts being severely compromised. The most vulnerable age group (adolescents) must not continue to be exposed to the most powerful promotional channel for smoking imagery available in today’s globalized economy. A comprehensive approach to combating smoking imagery in film is therefore required. . . .
There are a number of levels of intervention whereby smoking in the movies can be restricted. The overall evidence suggests that voluntary and self-regulatory measures have not been successful. Advocacy approaches to obtain stronger labelling requirements (adult ratings) for movies showing smoking imagery as well as anti-smoking messages and assurances that no payoffs are received from the tobacco industry have received wide support recently in both the United States and India. It is clear that restrictions of smoking imagery in movies with wide global distribution will serve a larger, multinational public good. Thus national approaches, and even local approaches, can have wide-ranging positive global effects. Multinational cooperation will also be critical in restricting the global reach of movie-based tobacco imagery.
Backed by evidence that smoking in movies causes youths to want to light up, the World Health Organization is calling upon countries to enact enforceable policies that would severely restrict such depictions.
Download full report
The report recommends that all future movies with scenes of smoking should be given an adult rating, with the possible exception of movies that reflect the dangers of tobacco use or that depict smoking by a historical figure who smoked.
Studies show that smoking continues to permeate movies, including those rated as suitable for youth. The policies recommended would help ensure that movies that are marketed to youth do not include tobacco imagery.
"Voluntary agreements to limit smoking in movies have not and cannot work," the report says. It continues, "Logic and science now support enforceable policies to severely restrict smoking imagery in all film media."
"The WHO recommendations are evidence-based and very much needed," said WHO Assistant Director-General Dr Ala Alwan.
The World Health Organization, which has helped spearhead efforts to contain swine flu, won Spain's prestigious Prince of Asturias prize on Wednesday for its work fighting global killers such as AIDS, polio and tuberculosis.
The jury also singled out the Geneva-based U.N. health organization for its efforts to lower infant mortality rates and reduce tobacco consumption around the world.
"WHO is one of the most respected international institutions for its remarkable work fostering coordination and cooperation between countries in health matters," the foundation said in announcing the award.