Uruguay: A giant leap to prevent tobacco-assisted suicide

Originally published by the World Bank Group: https://blogs.worldbank.org/health/uruguay-giant-leap-prevent-tobacco-assisted-suicide

co-authored with Patricio V. Marquez

Tobacco is arguably one of the most significant threats to public health we have ever faced. Since the publication of the landmark U.S. Surgeon General's Report on Tobacco and Health in 1964, that provided evidence linking smoking to diseases of nearly all organs of the body (see graph below), the international community slowly began to realize that a century-long epidemic of cigarette smoking was causing an enormous, avoidable public health catastrophe across the world.
History is not linear. The road to progress tends to be circuitous and full of uncertainties, and even more than a few steps backwards.  In spite of this reality, at certain points in time, we have to admire those individuals and countries who have stepped in to shine the light to allow us all to move forward. 
Recently, Uruguay, a small country in South America, offered us a good example of how a government that is committed to protecting the health and wellbeing of its people was able to withstand for more than 6 years the pressure of litigation from a giant multinational tobacco company, whose annual revenues of more than US$80 billion exceed the country's gross domestic product of close to US$50 billion.  As discussed in detail below, Philip Morris started proceedings in February 2010 claiming that the com...

Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - October 25, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news