''I invite all parties with a material interest in advancing our public health goals to work with us in a constructive manner…in this way, this debate remains in the public domain,'' WHO Director-General Gro Harlem Brundtland said at the start of a two day meeting on the FCTC. The Convention – the world's first to deal entirely with a public health issue – will be negotiated by the WHO's 191 Member-States and is expected to be opened for signature no later than 2003.

''We have started a global debate around tobacco. Our Member States are eager to analyze the tobacco toll on individuals and governments and they are equally eager to act on the evidence…let us see to it that ours will be the last generation to face this scourge without hope,'' Brundtland said.

The two-day hearings in Geneva - the first such hearing in WHO history - will take place in late September or early October, 2000. All submissions as well as all testimony will be made part of the public record as well as being made available to countries negotiating the FCTC.

The announcement comes as pressure mounts on countries to act on the growing evidence that tobacco is emerging as the number one preventable cause of death and disease in the next 30 years. Tobacco now kills over 4 million people annually. By 2030, it will kill 10 million people, out of which seven in 10 will be in developing countries.

''The time for complacency is long past – we have to act fast and we have to move ahead in a responsible manner if we want to save lives,'' said Derek Yach, a WHO Executive Director and head of WHO's tobacco control programme, the Tobacco Free Initiative. ''We have to be courageous and far-sighted and ensure that the global debate is driven by public health concerns yet simultaneously addresses, in a responsible way, possible economic and social implications of demand reduction,'' he added.

Pitted against the WHO's Member States is a global tobacco industry that has failed to take public responsibility for the health consequences of promoting tobacco, especially to minors and children. Documentary evidence emerging from court cases around the world shows the tobacco industry as distorting scientific data and muddying political processes to keep the truth about tobacco consumption from public scrutiny.

Worse, there is mounting evidence to establish that nicotine has been manipulated to ensure that addiction occurs in minors and is maintained. New data from Brazil, India, China, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Oman, Egypt, to name a few, suggests that WHO may have severely underestimated the number of youths and children taking to tobacco everyday. WHO officials say the galloping burden of death, disease and disability from cancer, heart and lung diseases caused by tobacco will increasingly fall on developing countries, which are least prepared to cope.

The hearings will give the public health community, and also the tobacco industry and farmers, their opportunity to make their case before the public.

Formal FCTC negotiations between WHO's 191 Member States will begin in October this year. Countries now have a catalogue of options for the FCTC, which will deal with a range of issues including smuggling, advertising, taxation, regulation of tobacco products and agricultural diversification.

This is the first time in its 52-year history that the world's leading public health agency is negotiating a public health convention. Dr Brundtland identified global tobacco control as one of her major priorities when she took office in July 1998.

For more information, contact, at WHO Geneva, Gregory Hartl, Press Spokesperson, (+41 22) 791 4458, mobile (+41) 79 203 6715, e-mail hartlg@who.int.