The American Cancer Society was invited by the International Union Against Cancer (UICC) to head a delegation to the World Health Organization (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) Working Group on Article 14 of the FCTC, "Demand Reduction Measures Concerning Tobacco Dependence and Cessation," September 2-4 in Seoul, South Korea. Thomas Glynn, PhD, director, Cancer Science and Trends and director, International Cancer Control, American Cancer Society, headed the UICC delegation and participated in the negotiations as part of a nongovernmental organization expert group. The American Cancer Society has been a key supporter of the FCTC process since it began in 1999.There are more than 1.3 billion tobacco users globally, and as many as 70 percent of them report that they would like to quit their tobacco use. The Article 14 Guideline will aid greatly in providing opportunities for these tobacco users to obtain science-based treatment for their addiction.The Article 14 working group that met in Seoul will have a second and final session in February in Auckland, New Zealand. After that session, the working group will then present the proposed treatment guideline for approval and adoption by all 166 member nations of the FCTC to the FCTC Conference of the Parties, which meets in November 2010 in Punte del Este, Uruguay. If the guideline is approved at the conference, it will go into force shortly thereafter, providing yet another option for more than one billion tobacco users to avoid the possible disease and death that follow from their addiction to tobacco use.
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