This year for World No Tobacco Day, the World Health Organization is urging governments to build on advertising and promotion bans by introducing plain packaging of tobacco products. The measure is the next logical step in stripping away any hint of glamour associated with smoking. It is also an important way of preventing packaging creating misleading suggestions of […]
Category: WHO
Tobacco industry attacks WHO, but only incriminates itself
Mary Assunta, Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance The tobacco industry lost the health argument 50 years ago, and in the past decade the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) developed the antidote to reverse the smoking epidemic. However the tobacco industry is stepping up direct attacks, particularly at WHO. Recently the industry took […]
E-cigarettes and children: advocates walking on both sides of the street?
Post written by Prof Simon Chapman AO Follow Simon on Twitter: @simonchapman6 —- In a 2014 open letter to the WHO’s director general Margaret Chan signed by 53 researchers, it was argued “Controls on [ecigarette] advertising to nonsmokers, and particularly to young people are certainly justified, but a total ban would have many negative effects, […]
The problem with comparing meat and smoking cancer risk
The Guardian reports: Comparing meat to tobacco, as most news organisations who’ve chosen to report this have done, makes it seem like a bacon sandwich might be just as harmful as a cigarette. This is absolutely not the case. This Cancer Research UK infographic elegantly shows that while the evidence that processed meat causes […]
World Conference on Tobacco or Health: keeping the focus on the tobacco industry
Anna Nicholson, Menzies School of Health Research Follow Anna on Twitter @annaknicholson The 16th World Conference on Tobacco or Health (WCTOH) was held in Abu Dhabi from March 17-21 2015, the first time it has been held in the Middle East. While this did not come without challenges (approximately 60 delegates, the majority from […]
WHO report on regulation of e-cigarettes and similar products
The following content is courtesy of the WHO. The report on “Electronic nicotine delivery systems” (ENDS), of which electronic cigarettes are the most common prototype, is on the agenda of the 6th Conference of the Parties (COP) to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC), being held 13-18 October 2014, in Moscow. E-cigarettes […]