U.N. News: Don’t let smoking steal life’s breathtaking moments, urges U.N. health agency
“Tobacco use continues to claim around eight million lives a year, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday, in a call for faster action from governments to tackle smoking and the ‘enormous’ health, social, environmental, and economic costs it entails. Ahead of World No Tobacco Day, marked on Friday, 31 May, WHO’s Dr. Vinayak Prasad, acting director, Department for the Prevention of Noncommunicable Diseases, highlighted the damage that tobacco causes to the lungs of smokers and non-smokers alike. … [T]he U.N. agency is calling for quicker implementation of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC), which provides practical advice on how to implement tobacco control measures covering all sectors of government…” (5/29).