Tobacco harm reduction should be central to efforts to cut smoking deaths in Asia-
Pacific, according to Professor Tikki Pang, former Director for Research Policy at the
World Health Organization (WHO) and currently a senior global health consultant at the
Center for Healthcare Policy and Reform Studies in Jakarta.
Pang delivered his remarks at an Asia Forum on Nicotine (AFN) webinar on Aug. 17
titled “The WHO FCTC, 20 years on.”
Nancy Loucas, executive coordinator of the Coalition of Asia-Pacific Tobacco Harm
Reduction Advocates (CAPHRA), stressed the size of the problem. “The fact is that
Asia-Pacific, specifically Asia, has the highest number of global tobacco users. The
number is staggering. It is 781 million people. That represents 63 percent of the global
total of people who use tobacco,” she said.
Loucas warned that the provisional agenda for the WHO Framework Convention on
Tobacco Control (FCTC) conference in November wrongly dismisses harm reduction as
a tobacco industry narrative.
Pang pointed out that harm reduction is included in the treaty. “Despite the fact that
Article 1 of the convention implicitly includes harm reduction as a component of tobacco
control, there is a failure to acknowledge and support the use of safer alternative
tobacco products as an important strategy and tool to end smoking,” he said.
“Despite the overwhelming evidence of the safety, efficacy and cost-effectiveness of
these products, and the fact that 130 million people are actually using these safer alternatives, the WHO, FCTC and the COP have adopted a very strong anti-tobacco
harm reduction stance, actually stating that these products are as harmful as
combustible cigarettes and calling on its member states to ban them and actually giving
awards to countries which have done so,” Pang said.
Although the FCTC has helped avert deaths since 2005, Pang stressed limits remain.
“The Asia-Pacific region bears a very significant burden of these harmful effects of
smoking,” he said.
He urged regional advocates to establish independent, evidence-driven coalitions
similar to the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and
Associations (IFPMA).
“In the years that I’ve become a supporter for tobacco harm reduction… I have been
struck by the support the cause has received from many quarters,” Pang said.
He concluded with a reflection from Alex Wodak of Australia. “WHO’s position on this
issue is now as irrelevant as the position of governments in Eastern Europe and the
Soviet Union in the 1980s on the future of central command economies. WHO’s position
will collapse at some point, but I don’t know when,” he said.
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