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UN’s top health official: Anti-tobacco efforts can lead to better health "in every corner of the world"

Speaking of lung cancer, there were some pretty strong words out of the United Nations today on the importance of global anti-tobacco efforts:

“I can think of no other undertaking that can make such a huge contribution to better health in every corner of the world. And that includes the health of young children and unborn babies,” the Executive Director of the UN World Health Organization (WHO), Dr. Margaret Chan, said at the Fifth Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC), taking place in Seoul, the capital of the Republic of Korea.

“This has always been one of the anti-tobacco campaign’s most compelling arguments. Tobacco use is the epidemiological equivalent of a drive-by shooting – it hurts the innocent bystanders as well as those held captive by an addiction that damages their health,” she added.

...

“The tobacco industry behaves like a corrosive substance that can eat through, or seep through, any crack or fissure in the armour of our defences. Our response must be to seal all these cracks and fissures, one by one, with science and evidence, supported by instruments for applying this knowledge and backed by the rule of law,” Dr. Chan said.

Previously: Smoking rates increasing in the developing world, A call to stop tobacco marketing, Study shows anti-tobacco programs targeting adults also curb teen smoking, Europe launches campaign to get young smokers to stop and Australia enacts world’s first ban on branded cigarette packaging
via @JohnsHopkinsSPH
Photo in featured-entries box by andyket

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