This week 100 independent specialists from 30 countries – mostly doctors, researchers and professors – signed a letter calling on the World Health Organisation (WHO) to change its position on tobacco harm reduction, ahead of the ninth meeting of the Conference of the Parties of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (COP-9) to be held next month, writes MedicalBrief.
The experts are from Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Canary Islands, Chile, Colombia, Czech Republic, Ecuador, France, Greece, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Poland, Singapore, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, Tunisia, Venezuela, the United Kingdom and the United States.
In the letter, sent on 18 October 2021, the specialists urge WHO to take a more positive stance on tobacco harm reduction. COP-9 will be held online from 8-13 November 2021.
The call is published on website of Clive Bates, director of Counterfactual Consulting and former director of Action on Smoking and Health in the United Kingdom.
“The letter pushes back against WHO’s misguided and unscientific drive for prohibition or excessive regulation and taxation of vaping products, heated and smokeless tobacco products, and novel oral nicotine products, such as pouches,” Bates writes.
The pdf version (see link below) lists the names, titles and institutions of all the signatories, “report no conflicts of interest with respect to the tobacco industry and no issues arising under Article 5.3 of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control”.
Among the globally respected scholars are Professor Sanjay Agrawal, chair of the Tobacco Advisory Group of the Royal College of Physicians in the UK; Professor Cheryl Healton, dean of the School of Global Public Health at New York University; and Dr John R Seffrin, professor emeritus at Indiana University and former CEO of the American Cancer Society.
Recommendations
The letter makes seven main points relevant to FCTC parties, and six recommendations. It urges countries take “a more questioning and assertive approach to WHO’s advocacy on smoke-free alternative to smoking” and undertake to:
- Make tobacco harm reduction a component of the global strategy to meet the Sustainable Development Goals for health, notably SDG 3.4 on non-communicable diseases.
- Insist that any WHO policy analysis makes a proper assessment of benefits to smokers or would-be smokers, including adolescents, as well as risks to users and non-users of these products.
- Require any policy proposals, particularly prohibitions, to reflect the risks of unintended consequences, including potential increases in smoking and other adverse responses.
- Properly apply Article 5.3 of the FCTC to address genuine tobacco industry malpractice, but not to create a counterproductive barrier to reduced-risk products that have public health benefits or to prevent critical assessment of industry data strictly on its scientific merits.
- Make the FCTC negotiations more open to stakeholders with harm-reduction perspectives, including consumers, public health experts, and some businesses with significant specialised knowledge not held within the traditional tobacco control community.
- Initiate an independent review of WHO and the FCTC approach to tobacco policy in the context of the SDGs. Such a review could address the interpretation and use of science, the quality of policy advice, stakeholder engagement, and accountability and governance. The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, initiated to evaluate the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, offers such a model.
“We believe that it is time for global tobacco policy to draw on the full potential of tobacco harm reduction,” the letter concludes.
“We hope the public health science, policy and practitioner communities will converge on a common purpose to meet the SDGs and to reduce the global burden of tobacco-related disease and premature mortality as quickly and deeply as possible.”
Individual statements by the experts (Open access)
See also from the MedicalBrief archives
Global tobacco control ‘hugely outdated’ – Dr Kgosi Letlape
Anti-vaping advice by World Health Organisation ‘risks lives of millions’
Tobacco harm reduction – Patients before prejudices
Tobacco smoking control – Much research, little action
WHO versus Public Health England over e-cigarettes