Nothing says World No Tobacco Day like rewarding countries which have protected cigarette sales.

During a back-slapping event on the sidelines of the World Health Assembly last week, the World Health Organization handed out gongs to countries in honor of World No Tobacco Day 2025. The awards are, reportedly, for those “that have made outstanding contributions to advancing policies and measures included in the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC).” However, one can sense a theme going on with those who received them. 

A special recognition award went to the Bloomberg-funded Global Center for Good Governance in Tobacco Control (GGTC) which is heavily opposed to safer alternatives to cigarettes. Perhaps it was recognised for its “research” which includes a “fact sheet” on e-cigarettes misinforming readers that “a 30 ml e-liquid vial with a 1.8% nicotine concentration … would be more than enough to kill a 90 kg person.”

Vietnam was honored for its outstanding successes in the past year. Ms Dao Hong Lan, the country’s Minister of Health, received one of the Western Pacific region awards for its policy of banning e-cigarettes, including for personal use, meaning that tourists can be fined up to US$78 for using a vape, and anyone caught selling one will go to jail. According to the WHO itself, current male tobacco use in Vietnam is just over 48%, mostly supplied by its nationalized Tobacco Corporation (Vinataba) which accounts for nearly 58% of cigarette sales. How convenient! 

President of the Maldives, Dr. Mohamed Muizzu, received an award for his measures to ban vaping within the country, including the import, sale, and even personal use of vaping devices. Combustible tobacco is legal and readily available in the Maldives, which is handy for the 26.6% of its population who smoke. 

In Europe, Belgium’s Minister of Health has received recognition for “introducing measures like banning nicotine pouches, disposable e-cigarettes and tobacco product displays.” 21.4% of the Belgian population smokes cigarettes, which ranks them a lowly 17th out of the 27 member states. 

Lisa Lu, from the United States, was praised for her “exceptional leadership in the global fight against youth tobacco use.” One of her “notable contributions” was cited as “advocacy for flavored tobacco bans in California.” It failed to mention that San Francisco’s ban on vaping flavours led to an increase in “self-reported recent smoking among minor high school students relative to trends in other school districts.” Congratulations, Lisa! 

There were also awards for the Ministries of Finance and Health in Brazil, which has banned the option of vaping products for its 21,383,536 smokers. And an “expert” in the Uzbekistan Ministry of Health on Tobacco Control has been given a medal for his work on banning nicotine pouches. 20.4% of adult Uzbekistani males identified as smokers in 2022 and, perhaps more importantly, 22.3% of adult men in Uzbekistan are reported to use nasvay, a particularly harmful form of oral tobacco which is perfectly legal in the country. 

We could go on, but you get the idea. 
It does make you wonder what the WHO thinks “World No Tobacco Day” actually means. Handing out gold stars to governments for banning products that don’t contain tobacco, in a valiant effort to protect the market for those that do, feels a bit like giving out Nobel Prizes for arson prevention to people holding flamethrowers. If this is the plan to beat tobacco, the WHO might want to check under the sofa cushions because it has clearly misplaced its marbles.

Or would do so, if he was being consistent.

During a press briefing at WHO headquarters last week, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization, came tantalisingly close to identifying a big problem with the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control treaty. 

As reported in Geneva Solutions:

Tedros said that the organisation had already identified in a 2017 analysis its overreliance on a few major donors as a “systemic problem” and its need for reform.

Commenting on the fact that so little of the WHO’s funding comes from contributions by member states, he concluded that “That kind of arrangement denies the independence of the organisation.”

It is encouraging that Dr Tedros is talking of reform because there is no doubt the agency requires a lot of it. 

Dr Tedros was conciliatory towards the Trump administration, saying that, “We are open to reform. If they want to pay us less…We want them to pay us less.”

If he were consistent in this new attitude of reform, there is one person he could instruct the FCTC Secretariat not to take money from too. For it would certainly improve the perceived independence of the organisation if it stopped taking huge amounts of money from Michael Bloomberg. 
As referred to quite recently, perhaps the WHO’s tobacco treaty might have less of a “systemic problem” if it wasn’t hopelessly in hock to the World’s premier opponent of safer nicotine products.

“Bloomberg Philanthropies gave the WHO more than $18m for its anti-tobacco work in 2021 and 2022, tax filings show. WHO officials have said that Bloomberg’s money helps them implement their programs but does not affect policy making.”

Yeah, right. 

Bloomberg not only gives a lot of money to the WHO, he also funds the production of FCTC reports which cherry-pick evidence to suit his own personal view of harm reduction. 

His extensive involvement is also “mentioned as providing financial resources for tobacco control work in the Parties” regularly in FCTC bulletins. 

In short, when Bloomberg says jump, the FCTC Secretariat asks, “how high?” One might conclude that this “kind of arrangement denies the independence of” the FCTC Treaty, in the words of Dr Tedros.

Is it just coincidence that the FCTC receives a majority of its funding from those who are implacably opposed to reduced risk forms of nicotine, while it also ignores the wealth of scientific evidence that shows vaping and other lower risk products are helping to collapse smoking rates worldwide? 

You decide.