Prior to the UN review meeting on NCDs on July 10 and 11, FIRS and the NCD Alliance organized a panel discussion on July 9 which discussed the topic "Shared Drivers, Shared Solutions: NCDs, Lung Health and Sustainable Development."
The panellists presented overviews on topics that included air pollution, asthma, tobacco, and the use of cook stoves, all of which affect the lung. The panel emphasized that many external factors, such as air pollution and the use of cook stoves are causing millions of deaths and awareness about these factors is still low among government officials and the general public. Advocacy efforts by civil society through building of NCD alliances are one way of pushing governments to do more to reduce the burden of NCDs around the world. Tobacco use is one of the main risk factors for all major NCDs, such as chronic respiratory disease, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer. It was, therefore, timely that FIRS presented its recently finalized statement on e-cigarettes at this event.
Prof Dean Schraufnagel presented on behalf of FIRS the reasons why FIRS decided to develop this position paper on e-cigarettes and outlined its most important points. He pointed out that the tobacco industry had a long history of claiming their products were safe, but the FIRS statement emphasizes that there are enormous health stakes and these nicotine delivery products do not have an adequate safety record to allow their broad use. Download the full position paper.