wfn.org | Adventist Health Expert Urges Support for Tobacco Control Measures

["Beckett, John" <BeckettJ@gc.adventist.org>]

ANN Bulletin
Adventist News Network
Seventh-day Adventist Church World Headquarters
January 11, 2000
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Adventist Health Expert Urges Support for Tobacco Control Measures
Silver Spring, Maryland, USA ... [ANN]

"All agencies should take a more active role in supporting measures to
control tobacco," says Stoy Proctor, associate health director at the
Seventh-day Adventist Church World Headquarters. "This includes government
bodies, health institutions, but especially churches and individual groups.
We face an international tragedy of preventable deaths on an unprecedented
scale."

Proctor spoke in support of the World Health Organization's (WHO) aim to
develop a global treaty on tobacco control. 

According to WHO figures, tobacco may kill 10 million lives by the year
2030, with 70 percent of victims coming from developing countries. It is
estimated that smoking will kill more people over the next 30 years than all
deaths from malaria, tuberculosis and childhood diseases combined.
Currently, tobacco kills one person every eight seconds, which equates to
four million preventable deaths each year.

The WHO met in New Delhi, India, on January 8 to promote its plan to
establish a treaty on tobacco control.

"We all need to recognize our part in this great tragedy," said Proctor. "If
we do nothing, many more will die needlessly from this international killer
that increasingly affects those living in the developing countries of the
world." [Jonathan Gallagher]
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