Commentary: The power of tobacco, part 1
It seems inconceivable and totally irrational that someone can market a product that addicts and kills, yet merchandise it virtually free from governmental regulation and control... Advocacy & Policy
Commentary: What is a healthy city? Lessons from the Global Project of Cienfuegos, Cuba
Cienfuegos has been recognized by the Pan American Health Organization, as the first Latin American city officially involved in the Healthy City Movement... Advocacy & Policy
Commentary: The maturation of patient education
As we approach the 21st century, there has been much discussion about the evolving nature of the primary care provider-patient relationship. More specifically, patients have been demanding a larger role in their care... Advocacy & Policy
Commentary: Tobacco—the assault on women, Part 3: Issues of body weight and penetration in poor countries
A key factor why women succumb to smoking relates to body weight. In our weight-conscious culture, smoking is widely deemed an effective means of weight control... Advocacy & Policy
Commentary: Tobacco—the assault on women, Part 2: Heart disease and reasons for tobacco power
Ischemic heart disease is responsible for 40% of deaths in industrialized societies, with smoking a major modifiable risk factor, accounting for about one fifth of cardiovascular death in the US... Advocacy & Policy
Commentary: Tobacco—the assault on women, Part 1: Cancer and other derangements
Throughout my practice of medicine I witnessed many sordid events, but few compare to the seduction of women to smoke. This would not have happened without the prodigious investment in advertising by the tobacco companies, more than US$5 billion annually... Advocacy & Policy
Commentary: Cardiovascular disease in the developing world—myths and realities
Part of the difficulty in combating CVD in developing nations has to do with several myths that surround the disease... Advocacy & Policy
Commentary: Simple intervention resulting in beneficial health effects
Following is an example of a simple, elegantly designed, randomized trial in Ethiopia that demonstrated how a relatively simple intervention can result in important beneficial health effects in young children... Advocacy & Policy
Primary and secondary prevention of coronary heart disease
A summary of an evidence-based approach in cardiovascular disease prevention. It offers a strategy to cardiovascular risk factors, based on the strength of the association, the evidence of benefit of intervention and the cost efficacy of the intervention... Advocacy & Policy
Commentary: Tobacco—the assault against children increases
That tobacco companies target children is no longer in dispute. It is corroborated by thousands of hitherto secret internal company memoranda and documents. These have been exposed to wide public view through legal subpoenas during the rage of anti-tobacco litigation throughout the US... Advocacy & Policy
Commentary: Tobacco—the crusade against children
The tobacco companies have argued that they are not legally liable for health endangering behavior of informed adults. Given the deliberate focus to entrap youngsters in life-long addiction, this is less an issue of exercise of free choice than exploiting callow youth and doing violence to children... Advocacy & Policy
Commentary: Health priorities for sub-Saharan Africa and the challenge of cardiovascular disorders
The increasing socioeconomic and geopolitical instability (in addition to other similar influences in a more global context) in several countries of this region is thought to have had a negative influence on the designation of health care as a budgetary priority... Advocacy & Policy
Commentary: Passive smoking
The problem of passive smoking globally is of enormous dimension and growing. The wide prevalence of smoking in the home, the workplace, and spaces of public assemblage, provides no oasis free from toxic tobacco pollutants for the nonsmoker... Advocacy & Policy
Commentary: Cardiovascular disease epidemic—a new global challenge for WHO
For the past two decades, the World Health Organization's approach to achieving "Health for All" has been through the concept of primary health care.... Advocacy & Policy
Commentary: The increasing worldwide burden of cardiovascular disease at the millennium
During the first half of this century, many developed countries experienced a steady, increasing epidemic of cardiovascular disease, followed in some but not all by declines in mortality due, in part, to remarkable gains in primary prevention and treatment... Advocacy & Policy
Evolving evidence on diet and coronary heart disease
"Not only is the public utterly confused about diet and coronary heart disease, but the practicing physician is also at a loss to separate fact from fiction in the barrage of contradictory information. Dr. Walter Willett succinctly clarifies what we do know, what is promising but remains to be proved, and what is invalid..." Advocacy & Policy
Commentary: Can we telescope the transition? Chronic disease epidemics in developing countries
The pace and the process of health transition occurring in the developing countries have emerged as major global health concerns. The nutrition transition that is rapidly occurring in the developing countries, as well as the mounting tobacco toll, testify to the validity of these concerns and emphasize the urgency for appropriate and adequate public health responses... Advocacy & Policy
Commentary: Tobacco - the power of addiction
"Smoking is no longer presumed to be an innocuous social habit, but rather a noxious and powerful chemical dependency. The addictiveness of nicotine is recognized by the American Psychiatric Association, the American Medical Association, the US Surgeon General, the World Health Organization, the Medical Research Council of the United Kingdom, and a host of others..." Advocacy & Policy
Commentary: Opium wars of the 21st century: tobacco and the developing world
"In the past decade, United States tobacco consumption dropped 17% while exports have skyrocketed 259%. At present, the two American giants, Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds sell more than two-thirds of their cigarettes overseas and half their profits come from foreign sales..." Advocacy & Policy
Commentary: The scourge of smoking: tobacco and cardiovascular health
"During a good part of my life in medicine I have campaigned against the arms trade as one of the great threats to human life. In recent years I have come to realize that those promoting the global use of tobacco have been far more destructive of life than the arms merchants. In the USA, smoking kills over a 1000 people daily, or 430,000 annually..." Advocacy & Policy
