Tobacco smoking posed a growing menace to society and would claim 10 million lives a year by 2025, an international conference was told yesterday.
The 10th World Conference on Tobacco and Health closed with strong warnings of a need for caution in settlements on liability claims over the effect of smoking.
Tobacco shared only with AIDS the claim to being a major growing cause of premature death, Ms Judith Mackay, of the Asian Consultancy on Tobacco Control, said. By 2025, smoking would kill 10 million people a year, she said. "Tobacco's share of all death and disability worldwide will increase from the current 3 per cent to 9 per cent by 2025," Ms Mackay said.
A resolution adopted by the meeting urged governments to consider carefully the implications of any liability settlements reached with the tobacco industry. Activists said the motion was clearly aimed at the United States, where a proposed $368.5 billion settlement between the tobacco industry and state attorneys general was under review. It requires congressional approval.
The resolution called on governments to ensure such settlements did not boost worldwide tobacco deaths and protected the legal rights of those not directly represented. Settlements should force the cigarette companies to pay for damages caused by tobacco and should not inhibit public scrutiny of the industry, it said.
The US deal failed on such conditions, making the resolution a powerful call for President Clinton to oppose the settlement under review, Prof Stanton Glantz, of the University of California, said. "The tobacco industry desperately wants this deal . . . but the White House won't do this in the face of open opposition from the public health community."
Ms Mackay painted a bleak future of smoking-related fatalities, but said it was clear that by the 21st century many countries would enact unprecedented restrictions on tobacco use.
A man has filed a lawsuit in Chicago to get a court order for his wife to stop smoking, USA Today reported yesterday. Mr Richard Thomas (69), a retired colonel, filed the suit based on the federal Clean Air Act, which regulates factory and car emissions, accusing his wife Sally of polluting his air.