Opacity and the World Health Organisation (WHO) go together hand in hand. This has been well documented by Dick Puddlecote in his excellent blogs from the COP7 jamboree in New Delhi this week. This sight of a US reporter being dragged from the meeting by security sums it up. But what is even more annoying about WHO is the way it simply doesn't care about harm reduction.
Take a look at this tweet (retweeted by WHO) in response to a tweet from Philip Morris International (PMI):
You would think that WHO would be encouraging the tobacco industry to move away from combustibles to less harmful products. If it genuinely thought about the health of the world's population, rather than its own narrow agenda, it would.
As I mentioned in this article a month ago, tobacco companies are the only businesses that have the resources to make the type of investment required. If WHO gets its way and prevents them from getting new, innovative products onto the market, not only will those businesses close, but hundreds of millions of people will not benefit from less harmful ways of getting their daily nicotine fix. Who in their right mind would want that?