NEW YORK, Feb. 7 (UPI) -- The World Health Organization's Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic calls for more aggressive global action against tobacco, a U.S. group says.
The American Cancer Society says it strongly supports more aggressive global action against tobacco because smoking kills nearly half of all people who smoke, and proposals for reducing the worldwide damage caused by tobacco have proven to be effective.
"It is unforgivable that so few people in the world are protected from secondhand smoke, that cessation services are available to so few and that about half of all children worldwide live in countries where free distribution of tobacco products is legal and cigarettes are not sufficiently taxed," John R. Seffrin, chief executive officer, American Cancer Society said in a statement. "All the while, tobacco companies continue to maneuver around regulations and public pressure in order to addict the next generation of smokers, some 80 percent of whom live in developing countries."
Tobacco is the leading cause of preventable death in the world, killing an average of one person every six seconds, and the WHO report serves as a road map on how the global community can fight back, Seffrin said.
