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Web Watch follows issues relevant to tobacco control on the world wide web. The emphasis is on new sites or new features appearing on the web including relevant URLs and short descriptions of the material. A web site is available featuring the URL links referenced in this column as well as those referenced in past columns; the URL for that site is < http://www.gate.net/∼jcannon/webwatch/ >.
Tobacco Free Initiative home page
<http://www.who.int/toh/>
“Tobacco is a killer. Tobacco should not be advertized, subsidized or glamorized.” “WHO cannot remain indifferent. We need to free our population—in particular the young—of the tobacco pandemic.” Those pronouncements are the words of Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland, director-general of the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Dr Brundtland was not speaking idly. Immediately after assuming the position of director-general from Dr Hiroshi Nakajima, she established a Cabinet project, the Tobacco Free Initiative (TFI), to coordinate an improved global strategic response to tobacco as an important public health issue. The long-term mission is to reduce smoking prevalence and tobacco consumption in all countries and among all groups, and thereby reduce the burden of disease caused by tobacco.
The TFI site features a wide selection of WHO publications relating to tobacco, plus information about TFI including mission, goals, and management.
ASH Australia
<http://www.ashaust.org.au/>
Dedicated to improving tobacco control, ASH Australia provides timely media releases plus facts and issues in tobacco control. Cessation guidance and personal stories from smokers welcome the tobacco industry’s victims. An all-encompassing set of links to Australian governmental organisations helps the visitor contact their legislator.
A particularly striking poster is available detailing the incompleteness of cigarette pack warnings. To find out what the tobacco companies and your government forgot to tell you, go to:
< http://www.ashaust.org.au/wsd.html >
Warning: This poster is not for the fainthearted.
Brown and Williamson
<http://www.brownandwilliamson.com>
Claiming to be a “responsible company in a controversial industry”, Brown and Williamson …
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Web Watch is prepared by Jack Cannon. Send correspondence to him by email (jcannon{at}gate.net).