Our latest GFN Voices features Alex Wodak and Konstantinos Farsalinos, under discussion is the tragic impact of the disinformation campaigns and the role played by organizations like WHO.
Transcription:
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Joanna Junak: What currently causes the most misunderstanding in the field of tobacco harm reduction?
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Alex Wodak: Well, firstly there's a lot of misunderstanding. Secondly, I think it's probably getting worse as time goes by. Thirdly, I don't think there's any one particular issue that we have to identify. I think there are lots of things going on. I don't think the misinformation, disinformation is accidental. I think it's deliberate. People who are from an abstinence background and are bitterly opposed to harm reduction being applied to tobacco, I think part of the reason is their entrenched belief in abstinence is the only way out of the mess we're in at the moment. And there are many players involved. Of course, Mike Bloomberg, Bill Gates are involved, and WHO is very important in this. And I think the misinformation is really... They resort to misinformation deliberately because their arguments are so poor and that the... the argument is getting stronger and stronger for tobacco. After all, if you look at what's happened in Sweden, not just in the last few years, but over 200 years, if you look at what's happened in New Zealand, and especially if you compare that to Australia, what more evidence do you need? We have evidence here in Sweden and New Zealand for different kinds of tobacco harm reduction. In the case of Sweden, snus. In the case of Australia and New Zealand, the strong support for vaping in New Zealand and the hostile behavior of Australian governments towards vaping. So their arguments are falling apart. What do they do? They resort to smearing advocates for tobacco harm reduction, and they resort to fear campaigns, and they resort to misinformation. And there seems to be some coordination on that side. They deliberately avoid... polite and respectful attempts to discuss in private or debate in public. They avoid all those. Why would you avoid all that if you thought that your arguments were strong? They know their arguments are weak, and misinformation is really part of that.
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Konstantinos Farsalinos: I think the biggest problem is the misperceptions about nicotine and the evolution of the WHO-FCTC into an anti-nicotine battle instead of an anti-smoking battle. It seems that some regulators and some scientists want to... create a nicotine-free world. So they have deviated their goals. Instead of fighting smoking and making sure that smoking rates go down, they prefer to fight against nicotine in general. So they have included harm reduction products into their battle, their anti-smoking battle. They want in reality to apply all the M-power measures, which are considered the gold standard in tobacco control. They want these measures to be applied to all nicotine products. It doesn't make sense at all. It's in reality a matter of not understanding that they have failed in combating smoking because still after 60 years of knowledge about the adverse effects of smoking, we have more than one, about 1.2 billion smokers globally. And instead of focusing on this because it's smoking that causes disease and death, They are focusing on combating nicotine, which includes products of minimal, if any harm, let's say snus, for example, is almost not harmful at all. This results in losing a golden opportunity to eliminate smoking globally. And smokers are being deprived of tools which appear to be today the most effective tools for smoking cessation. They're doing it just because it's not a medical approach, it's not a medical intervention, these are consumer products. Of course there are some issues that need to be addressed through appropriate regulation, but appropriate regulation is not prohibition as the WHO suggests. So I hope that very soon they will change their position because their position today costs lives.