World Health Organisation director-general Dr. Margaret Chan told a summit on measurement and accountability in health: "In this day and age, where transparency is such a big commodity, there is no other option but to have transparency and accountability."
Through its Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (or "FCTC") the WHO has spawned an organisation that adopts strategies and tactics increasingly at odds with principles of openness, fairness and accountability. Through deliberate exclusion and collusive, opaque and undemocratic practices, the FCTC, under the mantra of protecting public health, has started promoting measures that cut across areas such as national agriculture policies, taxation, trade and many other areas beyond its remit or expertise. This can create more harm than good.
Who should be more equipped to discuss pragmatic solutions concerning agriculture than tobacco farmers who work hard to produce legal and compliant crops?
Some of the FCTC articles are aimed at curtailing tobacco production or implementing limits on some inherent natural constituents of tobacco plants, without proven effects on reducing cigarette consumption. These measures, however, directly threaten the livelihood of more than 30-million people who grow a legal crop to meet business and consumer demands. Read More>
No comments:
Post a Comment