This is an archive page.  The links are no longer being updated.


REMARKS BY:	DONNA E. SHALALA, SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
PLACE:		World Tobacco Conference, Chicago, Illinois
DATE:		August 7, 2000

Meeting the Tobacco Challenges

The dramatization you've just seen may have been hypothetical-but the issues and arguments we presented are all too real-and these very same arguments are being echoed in Cabinet rooms and Ministerial chambers around the world. While tobacco control will certainly be influenced by debates like the one you just heard, cutting through tobacco's smokescreen is not a job for Cabinet Ministers alone. It needs every one of us engaged in the battle.and no one should wait to begin the debate and discussion on tobacco until after a formal meeting of government ministers is convened.

We cannot afford to delay because we're all too familiar with the statistics: Every year, tobacco kills three million people around the world.in the next 20 to 30 years, that toll will rise to 10 million.and by the year 2030, premature deaths caused by tobacco in the developing world are expected to exceed deaths from AIDS, TB and childbirth complications combined. We can change these grim statistics-and write a new chapter in the history of world health-but only if we start now. And only if we meet five challenges.

First-and perhaps most important-we must remember that effective tobacco control needs to be driven by local interest, local action and local leaders that can inform and influence national leaders. It must be debated not just in the chambers of parliaments, but in city halls, town halls, and in the halls of public opinion.

Second, because we work in common cause, we must stand on common ground. Since tobacco companies respect no national boundary or narrow domestic wall in their efforts to spread death and disease-neither can we. We know that the real work of tobacco control must take place in individual countries, but tobacco control supporters must join hands across increasingly porous borders and work together.

Third, we must urge all governments to participate in the negotiations for a strong "Framework Convention on Tobacco Control" that puts public health first-and that helps national governments coordinate tobacco control efforts.

Fourth, we must learn from one another. Many countries are taking innovative steps to control tobacco use. For example, here in the United States, the Clinton Administration has called for our Food and Drug Administration to be given the authority to regulate the marketing and sales of tobacco products to youth. We've proposed funding for Medicaid coverage of smoking cessation drugs. And we're requesting more funding for our Centers for Disease Control to promote state and community-based prevention, education and research efforts. We all need to study each other's tobacco control efforts.to learn what works.and to spread that information to every nation.

Fifth-and finally-we must help shine our national spotlights on the dangers of tobacco. By that, I mean we must help educate our fellow citizens-and government representatives-that tobacco control is as important to public health-and national well-being-as immunizations and infectious disease. We must also help educate government ministers and others about the recent findings of the World Bank that bolster the argument that tobacco control makes good economic sense-as well as good public health sense. Because as we saw in our dramatization-and as we've witnessed here in the United States-arguments against tobacco control can be very seductive.while arguments in favor of control may not always seem to be in a nation's best interest.

But as all of us know, tobacco control is always in our best interest. Helping ensure that fewer of the world's citizens see their dreams go up in smoke is always in our best interest. And banishing the specter of tobacco that haunts all of our nations is always in our best interest. When I was asked to participate in today's dramatization, I was reminded that Shakespeare wrote that "all the world's a stage." If that's true, then-undoubtedly-the most important role for all of us here today is to help hasten tobacco's exit from the world stage.to put an end to this tragedy.and to finally bring the curtain down on one of history's greatest killers.

###