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Excerpts from World: WHO Launches Internet-Based Drive Against Smoking

By Ben Partridge, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty [06/10/99]

http://www.rferl.org:80/nca/features/1999/06/F.RU.990610132820.html

The World Health Organization (WHO) has launched a new Internet-based information program that outlines the life-saving and economic benefits of persuading tobacco smokers to quit smoking. The program is aimed at the 30 million European smokers who try -- but mostly fail -- to give up cigarettes, cigars and pipes each year.

The program outlines the benefits of stopping smoking after an exhaustive survey of six countries: Poland, Germany, France, Britain, Italy, and the Netherlands.

The website provides statistics about smoking-related health effects, including a higher incidence of chronic pulmonary disease, cancer, asthma, coronary heart disease, and strokes.

Health experts expect that over the next 20 years, in the six countries surveyed, between one-third and one-half of smokers will contract a smoking-related disease, resulting in 14 million deaths.

The website was launched a week ago to coincide with "World No-Tobacco" Day. It is part of a three-year partnership launched at the World Economic Forum in January involving governments, NGOs and the pharmaceuticals industry.

The project provides guidance for health workers on how to help people quit smoking, assists governments in developing no-smoking policies and promotes the creation of smoke-free workplaces.

The WHO Economic Consequences of Smoking Model is available on the internet at the following address: www.who.dk/hp/adt/ecos/whoweb.asp

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