Report: Future Tobacco Deaths Underestimated

HELSINKI (Reuters)

The authors of the Global Youth Tobacco Survey said the basis of World Health Organization (WHO) estimates, that 10-11 million people will die annually from tobacco by 2030, could be flawed.

The study...covered over a million adolescents from over 150 countries.
The study found for example that in Africa, for every woman using tobacco there were just over seven men but for girls to boys the ratio was 2.2 to one. The ratio also narrowed in all other global regions.

"These findings suggest that projections of future tobacco-related deaths worldwide might be underestimated because they are based on current patterns of tobacco use among adults where women are only about one-fourth as likely as men to smoke cigarettes," the report's authors said.

The WHO's Vera Luiza Da Costa E Silva told a news conference at the World Conference on Tobacco or Health in Helsinki it was not clear why more girls would be turning to tobacco...

STORY

Africa. These misfits bring up Africa? When these morons were handing out these surveys to African adolescents didn't they notice anything strange?

Libya. Life expectancy in Libya is 75.86 years. Tunisia? 74.16 years. Reunion? 73.18 years.

And we have Mauritius at 71.53 years and Seychelles-70.97 years. And then we have Algeria at 70.24 years.

That's not so bad, you say. Only 5-10 years less than say the U.S.A.for example. But these are the good ones. If anybody is seriously worried about the perils of smoking in Africa they are either a fool or a paid employee of the anti-tobacco industry.

Angola. 38.87 years of life expectancy. Their infant mortality rate (IMR) is 191.66 deaths/1,000 live births.
Benin-49.69 years.
Bhutan-53.19 years. IMR-106.79.
Botswana-35.29 years. HIV/AIDS -adult prevalence rate(HIV)- 35.8%.
Burkina Faso-46.11 years. IMR-105.3.
Burundi-45.94 years. HIV: 11.32%.
Cameroon-54.36 years.
Cape Verde- 69.52.
Central African Republic-43.58 years. HIV-13.84%.
Chad-51.27 years.
Comoros-60.79 years.
Congo, Democratic Republic of the (formerly Zaire)-49.13 years.
Congo, Republic of the-47.71 years.
Cote d'Ivoire-44.72 years. HIV-10.76%.
Djibouti-51.6 years. HIV-11.75%.
Egypt-64.05 years.
Equatorial Guinea-54.35 years.
Eritrea-56.57 years.
Ethiopia-44.21 years. HIV-10.63%.
Gabon-49.11 years.
Gambia, The-53.98 years.
Ghana-57.06 years.
Guinea-46.28 years.
Guinea-Bissau-49.8 years. IMR-108.54.
Kenya 47.02 years. HIV-13.5%.
Lesotho-47 years. HIV- 23.57%.
Liberia-51.8 years. IMR-130.21.
Madagascar-55.74 years.
Malawi-36.59 years. HIV-15.96%.
Mali-47.39 years.
Mauritania-51.53 years.
Morocco-69.73 years.
Mozambique-35.46 years. IMR-138.55. HIV-12.6 to 16.4%.
Namibia-38.97 years. HIV-19.54%.
Niger-41.91 years.
Nigeria-50.59 years.
Rwanda-38.66 years. IMR-117.79. HIV-11.21%.
Sao Tome and Principe-65.93 years.
Senegal-62.93 years.
Sierra Leone-45.96 years. IMR-144.38 deaths.
Somalia-46.96 years. IMR-122.15.
South Africa-45.43 years. IMR-19.94%.
Sudan-57.33 years.
Swaziland-37 years. IMR-109.43. HIV-35.6%.
Tanzania-51.7 years.
Togo-54.02 years.
Uganda-43.81 years.
Western Sahara-N/A.
Zambia-37.35 years. HIV-19.95%
Zimbabwe-36.5 years. HIV-25.06%.

Few of these countries have even 3% of its population age 65 years or older. I would guess that if they could totally eliminate tobacco use in Africa, the average life expectancy would increase .00015 seconds.

But because tobacco crops are a revenue producer in some countries there would more than likely be a loss in life if tobacco was eliminated.

Whatever the case, surveying tobacco use in Africa has got to be the most idiotic thing I've heard in a long time.

quote:

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The authors of the Global Youth Tobacco Survey said the basis of World Health Organization (WHO) estimates, that 10-11 million people will die annually from tobacco by 2030, could be flawed.

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Flawed!!! I love it when they discredit themselves. It gnaws away at their credibility. If the previous findings are flawed why should I accept without question that this new finding is any more credible? Especially when they say, "These findings suggest that projections of future tobacco-related deaths worldwide might be underestimated..." I'll bet these researchers hope like hell that the public won't notice the terms "belief" or "suggests" in their ground breaking news releases.

Greed works in mysterious ways.

You have adroitly pointed out the absurdity (and dare I say utter inhumanity?) of the WHO anti-tobacco campaign in poverty-stricken countries. THe WHO seems less concerned about attacking the root causes of truly premature death in these countries than about its anti-capitalistic political agenda. But then, the WHO policies are essentially all political and have nothing to do with health, especially in underdeveloped countries where the WHO appears to not only accept massive die-offs, but to find them desirable ("Better off dead than alive and riotously reproducing").

I forgot to mention that these numbers came the CIA Fact Book 2002.

Also, for comparative purposes, the US has a life expectancy at birth of 77.4 years, an IMR of 6.69 deaths/1,000 live births and an HIV rate of 0.61%. Those who live to be 65 years and over: 12.6% of the population.

Canada's life expectancy is 79.69 years, IMR=4.95 and HIV=0.3%. 65 years and over: 12.9%.

BTW, how long do you think you would last doing the survey work?

Hi, would you like to take a survey on smoking?
Do you have any food?
No. Can I speak to your mother?
She's dead. AIDS.
Is your father home?
He was killed by guerilla fighters.
Who's raising you then? Can I speak to them?
My aunt was raising me till she starved to death. Are you sure you don't have any food?
No, but I have a very important survey for you to fill out. It's on smoking.
I don't have time. I have to go beg in the streets for food. Besides, I can't read.
Are you sure, it'll only take a minute. It's really important.

Squeezer,

Your survey example is totally priceless, because it exactly how I envision something like that.

I can't even get into it because the actions and attitudes of WHO, the UN and the rest of the global one worlders make me sick to my stomach. If they spent just one-tenth of their time and money on addressing some real world health problems as they do on eradicating smoking - they would find themselves with a lot less preventable deaths on their hands that they in actuality are trying to blame on tobacco.

Unfortunately true, these organizations have evolved into a hypocritical disgrace with incompetents at the helm. And what depresses me to no end is the world believes they are doing a great job.

Squeezer, after what Wanda wrote I thought of doing a similar black comedy parody but since you are about a thousand times better at it, I'm delighted you beat me to it. In just a few clever lines you nailed their useless asses to the wall.

Gabz and Peter, thank you.

The WHO is nothing but a bunch of ^&%$#.

Adolescent smoking in Africa.

Acrylimides in potato chips.

Obesity worries in a world where X children go to bed hungry and Y of them starve to death.

Worried about seatbelt use.

Their budget is too big to have worries like these.

In gazing into that crystal ball the WHO must have, can the they even guarantee they'll be in existence in 2030, or the world for that matter? We have terrorist's, nuclear bomb's and maybe the possibility of another Black plague.
With luck, maybe the smoker's, and non-smoker's (who I find really don't mind our filthy habit), the alcohol and coffee drinker's, the obese, scented fragrance user's, cell-phone user's, seatbeltless and helmetless people will be allowed their own country and the anti's can set up their little idyllic world far removed from ours. They won't need much space and I'm sure it wouldn't be long before they'd be after each other.
Apparently the WHO doesn't have much faith in any of our esteemed scientist's for the future in 2030 either. It seems for all the time spent in predicting how many will die from the deadly tobacco disease they should be lauding the fact that our brilliant scientist's will have all diseases eliminated by 2030, even ones they think are caused by tobacco.
Of course, the population by 2030 might be so great 10-11 million people might need to be selected to be done away with. Never know.