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H Wipfli

Publications and source records attributed to H Wipfli.

4 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2004

Achieving the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control's potential by investing in national capacity.

May 2003 marked a critical achievement in efforts to stem the global tobacco epidemic, as the member states of the World Health Organization unanimously endorsed the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). However, the adoption of the FCTC signifies only the end of the beginning of effective global action to control tobacco. Over the next several years the utility of the FCTC process and the treaty itself will be tested as individual countries seek to ratify and implement the treaty's obligations. Significant barriers to the treaty's long term success exist in many countries. It is crucial that the international tobacco control community now refocuses its efforts on national capacity building and ensures that individual countries have the knowledge, tools, data, people, and organisations needed to implement the convention and develop sustained tobacco control programmes. This paper provides a model of national tobacco control capacity and offers a prioritised agenda for action.

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PubMedDate not supplied

A century of smoke.

Tobacco kills 5 million people annually. By the mid 2020s, that figure will increase to about 10 million a year, with most of the deaths occurring in developing countries. This review explains how early technological and regulatory developments contributed to the epidemic, reveals the efforts of the tobacco industry to conceal its products' harmfulness, and stresses the role of the globalization of trade and marketing as a means of increasing consumption world-wide. The results of tens of thousands of studies published globally over the past 50 years point to an association between smoking and lung cancer and other adverse health effects, and the non-smoker's rights movement has exposed the wide-spread perils of 'secondhand' smoke. Yet, the tobacco industry continues its global expansion, and consumers in low- and middle-income countries are especially susceptible to its marketing tactics. This review ends by emphasising the need for a global public-health response, and identifies the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control as a significant effort. It stresses the need for accelerated action and innovative tobacco-control efforts, if the projected death toll is to be reduced in this century.

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