Former World Health Organization (WHO) director Professor Tikki Pang urged global health authorities to embrace tobacco harm reduction, saying rigid opposition to alternative nicotine products is undermining progress against smoking-related deaths. Speaking at the Asia Forum on Nicotine, Pang said that while the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control saved millions of lives, its impact has stalled, especially in lower-income countries. He blamed slow policy implementation and rejection of less harmful products like e-cigarettes and nicotine pouches despite “overwhelming evidence” of the safety, efficacy, and cost-effectiveness of these (alternative) products.
“Global health authorities have adopted a very strong anti-tobacco harm reduction stance,” Pang said. “[They] actually state that these products are as harmful as combustible cigarettes and call on their member states to ban them and actually give awards to countries which have done so.”
Pang called for independent, evidence-based platforms to unite governments, scientists, and industry to promote transparency, proportional regulation, and harm reduction success stories.
Pang also quoted renowned physician Alex Wodak, saying, “And I quote Alex – WHO’s position on this issue is now as irrelevant as the position of governments in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in the 1980s on the future of central command economies. WHO’s position will collapse at some point, but I don’t know when.”