First WHO Public Hearing on the Silent Epidemic.

• Position: Brief Article

Taking sometimes starkly different stances, representatives of over 160 organizations expressed their views at a public hearing in Geneva on the proposed Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. Representatives from public health agencies, community-based organizations and academic institutions to most major multinational tobacco companies, as well as tobacco farming groups, addressed the two-day forum. Organized by the World Health Organization (WHO) in October, it was the first public hearing since May 1999 when the 191-member World Health Assembly, the governing body of WHO, unanimously backed a resolution calling for work to begin on a new legal instrument that could address the diverse issues involved in tobacco consumption, which the agency has reported as killing 4 million people each year.

While those concerned with public health urged rapid and...