| ■ Tobacco Could Kill 1 Billion People This Century: WHO | 2008.02.20 |
| Smoking and other types of tobacco use killed 100 million people worldwide in the 20th century, and could kill as many as 1 billion people this century unless dramatic global action is taken to curb tobacco use, said a World Health Organization report released Thursday. It said all countries must significantly boost efforts to prevent young people from starting to smoke, help smoker kick the habit, and protect nonsmokers from secondhand smoke, the Associated Press reported. The WHO Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic, 2008 listed six specific tobacco-control policies that should be adopted by governments: raise tobacco taxes and prices; ban tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship; protect people from secondhand smoke; warn people about the dangers of tobacco; help people who want to quit smoking; and monitor tobacco use to understand and reverse the epidemic. "The tobacco epidemic already kills 5.4 million people a year from lung cancer, heart disease and other illnesses,'' said WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan. ''Unchecked, that number will increase to more than 8 million a year by 2030.'' It's expected that more than 80 percent of tobacco-related deaths will be in low- and middle-income countries by 2030, the AP reported. The WHO report said nearly two-thirds of the world's smokers live in 10 countries, with 30 percent in China and about 10 percent in India. Other countries with large numbers of smokers include Indonesia, Russia, the United States, Japan, Brazil, Bangladesh, Germany and Turkey. |