The World Medical Association will step up its fight against tobacco..

THE HON NICOLA ROXON MP
Minister for Health and Ageing, WORLD MEDICAL ASSOCIATION COUNCIL MEETING, SYDNEY
Thursday 7 April 2011

10.04.2011) The World Medical Association will step up its fight against smoking with proposals to ban the production, distribution and sale of candy products that depict or resemble tobacco products.

At their three-day Council meeting in Sydney, Australia, (April 7-9) WMA delegates agreed to recommend to their annual Assembly in October plans to strengthen the organisation's anti tobacco policy to combat moves by the tobacco industry to make their products more appealing to young people.

Delegates argued that the WMA should extend its policy to include restrictions on smokeless tobacco and tobacco-derived products, including prohibiting all government subsidies for tobacco-derived products.

Dr. Ardis Hoven, chair of the Board of the American Medical Association, said the tobacco industry was now involved in aggressively promoting new forms of cigarettes, such as smokeless tobacco and electronic cigarettes in shops and on the internet to attract and appeal to young people, and the WMA needed to respond strongly.

Dr. Mukesh Haikerwal, chair of the WMA Council, said he and his colleagues were delighted with this week's major announcement at the WMA meeting by Australia's Health Minister on plain packaging for cigarettes.

‘The WMA welcomes the stringent measures of the Australian Government to progress tobacco control in this country and we hope this will be followed by other nations.'


References: Gloves off in medical body’s fight with tobacco, 4/14/2011; World Medical Association Council, Medical News Today, 4/11/2011; World Physicians Intensify Campaign against Smoking