Tobacco companies should return all profits from sales to children to organisations involved in cancer prevention, a conference in Dublin was told today.
Representatives from 82 cancer-care organisations around the world are attending the three-day 4th World Conference for Cancer Organisations in Dublin.
Professor Simon Chapman, Professor of Public Health at the University of Sydney, told delegates the paradox at the heart of the tobacco trade was that tobacco companies could not encourage children to smoke even in the knowledge that their very survival depended on recruiting new young smokers.
"If the tobacco industry truly believes that underage people should not consume tobacco products, we challenge them to return all profits from sales to children to the international tobacco control community," he said.
Dr Yussaf Saloojee of the International Union against Cancer said: "Tobacco has created a global health emergency. It is the single largest known cause of cancer death. One person dies every 30 seconds due to cancer caused by smoking, yet more people are smoking than at any other time in human history."
Ms Norma Cronin of the Irish Cancer Society outlined the challenges facing Ireland, at both governmental and non-governmental levels, in becoming the first European state to ban smoking in the workplace.
She urged delegates to take Ireland's success as an example in their own public health policy measures.