NEW YORK | Tobacco use killed 100 million people worldwide in the 20th century.</p><p>And it could kill 1 billion people in the 21st century, the World Health Organization said in a report Thursday, unless governments act now to dramatically reduce it.</p><p>Governments around the world collect more than $200 billion in tobacco taxes every year but spend less than one-fifth of 1 percent of that revenue on tobacco control, it said.</p><p>“We hold in our hands the solution to the global tobacco epidemic that threatens the lives of 1 billion men, women and children during this century,” Margaret Chan, WHO director-general, said in an introduction to the report.</p><p>The WHO Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic 2008 urges governments to adopt six “tobacco control policies” — raise taxes and prices of tobacco; ban tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship; protect people from secondhand smoke; warn people about the dangers of tobacco; help those who want to quit smoking; and monitor tobacco use to understand and reverse the epidemic.</p><p>Chan announced the report Thursday at a news conference with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, whose foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, helped finance it with a $2 million grant.</p><p>According to the report, nearly two-thirds of the world's smokers live in 10 countries: China, which accounts for nearly 30 percent, India, with about 10 percent, Indonesia, Russia, the United States, Japan, Brazil, Bangladesh, Germany and Turkey.</p><p>It forecast that more than 80 percent of tobacco-related deaths will be in low- and middle-income countries by 2030.</p><p>Michael Pfeil, vice president for communications for Lausanne, Switzerland-based Philip Morris International, said the company advocates “for tough, fair, cohesive regulation of the industry” and believes many countries need to do more.
Read More
No comments:
Post a Comment