Former official slams WHO over vaping bias

Earlier this month, at a conference in London to discuss global vaping policy, Professor Robert Bigglehall attacked the WHO's approach in a keynote speech.

In addition to being Professor Emeritus of Public Health at the University of Auckland, Professor Robert Bigglehall has also served as Director of the Chronic Diseases and Health Promotion Department at WHO.

He argues that saving the lives of millions of smokers through a smoke-free world depends on having safer alternatives to smoking, such as e-cigarettes, rather than aiming for a nicotine-free world, as the WHO hopes.

In his keynote address, he took aim at the World Health Organization's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) treaty, emphasizing its failure to succeed because of its unrealistic push for nicotine withdrawal and its stubbornness to adopt less harmful products resist.

Bigglehall accused the WHO of losing its way, condemning the secrecy of its biennial FCTC Conference of the Parties (COP) meetings. He also condemned the WHO's reliance on funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies, which he believes is pushing the WHO in the wrong direction due to Michael Bloomberg's personal ideology of banning vaping and nicotine. Bloomberg's donation - believed to total around $1 billion so far - comes as the World Health Organization insists on an initiative called MPOWER that completely excludes tobacco harm reduction options.

Wherever MPOWER is implemented, smoking rates have either risen or fallen very slowly, while in countries that have embraced harm reduction, smoking rates have fallen, often dramatically, Bigglehall noted. He also criticized the WHO's policy of awarding incentives to countries that ban safer nicotine products, such as India, even though such bans have led to rising smoking rates.

Bigglehall said countries should be encouraged to set goals based on science-based advice rather than ideology. Success would be quicker if tobacco companies were not hindered in transitioning from the most harmful to less harmful products, he added.