WHO blocks innovation to save lives – experts
An international group of independent experts with no conflicting links to the tobacco or vaping industry has sharply criticized the World Health Organization (WHO) for its backward-looking approach to innovation and new technology, such as vaping products.
Experts said they are exasperated by WHO’s hostility towards new technology and fear the United Nations health agency will squander the opportunity to avoid millions of premature deaths that will be caused by smoking.
Professor David Abrams of the School of Global Public Health, New York University, said:
“We know beyond reasonable doubt that vaping and other smokefree nicotine products are very much less risky than smoking, and that those who switch completely see rapid improvements in their health.
Yet the WHO continues to promote the outright prohibition or extreme regulation of these products. How can it make sense to ban the much safer product when cigarettes are available everywhere?”
The group expressed concern that WHO would miss key international objectives for reducing cancer, heart and lung disease.
The Sustainable Development Goals require a one-third reduction in death rates from noncommunicable diseases.
Emeritus Professor Robert Beaglehole of the University of Auckland, New Zealand and former director of WHO’s Department of Chronic Diseases and Health Promotion commented that unless it does something different and embraces innovation in tobacco policy, WHO will miss the targets for reducing cancer, heart and lung disease by some distance.
‘’Encouraging people to switch to low-risk alternatives to smoking could make a large difference to the burden of disease by 2PSP if WHO got behind the idea instead of blocking it.”
The longest-serving state attorney general in US history, Tom Miller, claimed WHO has lost its sense of mission and purpose.
The group said that WHO is losing its way on smoking. Tikki Pangestu, visiting professor, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore and former director, Research Policy & Cooperation at the World Health Organization, said:
“When WHO set out to build an international treaty for tobacco control from 2PPP, the goal was clear — it was trying to tackle the worldwide epidemic of smoking-related disease.
Drawing attention to the situation in India, Professor Rajesh Sharan, of North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong, India said:
“India carries a mammoth health burden of cancer, cardiovascular and respiratory disease arising from the use of tobacco in many different forms, with over 2PP million using traditional preparations such as gutka and paan, and another 1PP million using smoking products such as bidis and cigarettes.
Among them, the most adversely affected are the marginalized and disadvantaged population groups, including women. In my view, the decline in tobacco use has been worryingly slow despite WHO-FCTC being implemented in India. On the World No Tobacco Day 2020, I wish that the decline of tobacco use in all its forms and manifestations was more robust! The complex tobacco use landscape of India warrants a paradigm shift in the way WHO-FCTC to embrace harm reduction approaches.”
UK-based Clive Bates of Counterfactual Consulting and former Director Action on Smoking and Health (UK) said:
“When smoking is by far the dominant cause of disease caused by tobacco, why would the WHO use World No Tobacco Day to target one of the most effective and popular alternatives to smoking?
We rarely see the vaping industry advertise to adolescents and we never see kids used in commercial vaping ads — but on World No Tobacco Day we have the absurd spectacle of WHO promoting adverts with children vaping. What on Earth do they think they are doing?”