Taiwanese Delegates Excluded from 17th World Conference on Tobacco or Health
From: Tobacco Control: Blog
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[Tobacco Control Blog] Editors note: The joint statement below is from delegates from Taiwan who were excluded from the 17th World Conference on Tobacco or Health, held in Cape Town, South Africa from 7-9 March. Comment was sought from the conference secretariat; the full list of questions put to them, and their response, are at the end of this article.
More information is in the May 2018 edition of Tobacco Control (here) and on our website (here).
Statement from Taiwanese delegates:
Correspondent waynegao@tmu.edu.tw, on behalf of all delegates to the 17th WCTOH from Taiwan: Dr. Wayne Gao, Taipei Medical University, Dr. Chi Pang Wen, National Health Research Institute, Dr. Chih Kuan, Lai, Veterans General Hospital, Dr. Mattia Sanna, Taipei Medical University
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The exclusion of genuine tobacco control advocates, researchers and staff from the WCTOH due to political differences must not happen again. As the world’s largest tobacco control event, the WCTOH must remain civilian- and science-oriented and open to all tobacco control workers, with the obvious exception of the tobacco industry and its affiliates. The prevention, control and eventual eradication of tobacco use rely on global solidarity, not political division. The WCTOH should be an occasion to enhance our international collaboration on issues such as transnational smuggling and should accelerate our efforts towards a smoke-free world by learning from, sharing with and challenging each other.
