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"This year, the tobacco epidemic will kill nearly 6 million people," the Geneva-based U.N. health body said in its third Global Tobacco Epidemic report.
Comment: Let's stop right here and take a look at what has already been said.
Firstly, they refer to tobacco as an epidemic. This is clearly inflammatory language meant to bring to mind a ravaging disease. It has no bearing on science or any fact. This should give us a clue that the purpose of the WHO's press release is not to inform; it is to scare. That is, in fact, exactly how the WHO (along with the American Cancer Society and others) tend to approach the smoking issue. If you read the actual studies on smoking yourself, you'll find that they don't have a scientific leg to stand on. They can't resort to facts, because the facts don't say what they want them to say. So they resort to unsubstantiated scare tactics, instead.
Also note that 80% of the smokers mentioned live in low- to middle-income families. This is the problem with using epidemiological correlation studies to try to find evidence of causation: you can't. Individuals with low-income are more likely to die from disease, period. The only way to determine if smoking is the actual cause, or some other factor (e.g., diet, exposure to environmental toxins, etc.), is to perform a strictly controlled experiment, testing all of these variables. Until that is done (and it hasn't been to date), this and similar reports are completely valueless.
"More than 5 million of them will be users and ex-users of smoked and smokeless tobacco and more than 600 000 will be nonsmokers who were exposed to tobacco smoke," it said.
"By 2030, tobacco could kill 8 million people a year. Tobacco use is one of the biggest contributors to the non communicable diseases epidemic, which includes heart disease, stroke, cancers and emphysema and accounts for 63% of deaths," it said.
Comment: These kinds of statistics, while very impressive sounding and certainly very scary, have no basis in science whatsoever. Many have tried to find their source, but all have failed. You'll notice that the WHO does not even attempt to reference any sort of study as a basis for these scare tactics. They can't. They've tried that in the past, only to have it come back to bite them in the butt...pun intended.
For example, the WHO published a press release on March 9, 1998 with the provocative title Passive Smoking Does Cause Lung Cancer, Don't Let Them Fool You to answer critics of a recent second-hand smoke study. They began the press release with the claim that the study found estimated 16% and 17% increased risks of lung cancer in people exposed to second-hand smoke. Yet, buried further into the press release was the admission, "due to small sample size, neither increased risk was statistically significant." In fact, study after study has failed to show any correlation at all between second-hand smoke and any disease.
That is typical of the pronouncements from the WHO and all manner of anti-smoking advocates. The science doesn't show what they want it to show, but that doesn't stop them from making unfounded statements intended to scare people into submission.
It noted that more than a billion people in 19 countries are now covered by laws requiring large, graphic health warnings on tobacco packs but said too many countries are still not doing enough to cut smoking rates.
"We are pleased that more and more people are being adequately warned about the dangers of tobacco use,"" said Ala Alwan, WHO's assistant director-general for non communicable diseases and mental health.
"At the same time, we can't be satisfied that the majority of countries are doing nothing or not enough. We urge all countries to follow the best-practices for reducing tobacco consumption and to become parties to, and fully implement, the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control," Alwan said in a statement.
WHO said more than 739 million people in 31 countries are now covered by comprehensive laws requiring smoke-free indoor spaces--a more than twofold improvement over the 2009 version of the report, which showed that more than 353 million people were covered in 15 countries.
Burkina Faso, Nauru, Pakistan, Peru, Spain and Thailand are among the latest countries to ban smoking in indoor public spaces and the workplace.
Source: Dow Jones Newswires
I know for a fact that many people in villages in the Middle East who smoke PURE tobacco, don't die from "smoking related disease". Any smoking related disease comes from the chemicals they put into cigarets- not real tobacco!