[Please check against delivery]
Thank you very much, National Assembly and the Social Affairs Committee, for inviting WHO to speak at this important meeting.
I have three messages today.
First, let me be crystal clear: new nicotine and tobacco products are not safe, and they are not healthy.
In fact, these products are very harmful to health. They contain toxic chemicals that cause cancer, and increase the risk of heart and lung disease. In the short term, they can also cause very serious, even fatal, lung injuries. For children and young people, who are targeted by the industry, they can seriously impair brain development.
There is no evidence that these products help people to give up smoking tobacco. In fact, the opposite is true: they introduce people – especially young people – to nicotine, to get them hooked.
My second message is that regulating or restricting these products is extremely difficult.
Countries that have tried, like my home country, Australia, have been unable to prevent youth from taking them up.
One of the challenges is how to define products that are constantly evolving, to attract more consumers and exploit loopholes in any regulations.
Another challenge is having the facilities to test the products, and the enforcement capacity make sure the rules are strictly enforced.
For these reasons, a growing number of countries, about 40 now – including Thailand, Singapore, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Brunei Darussalam and Cambodia – have banned them entirely.
And so my third message is this: WHO believes that banning these products is the only option consistent with the high priority that the Government places on health, and with the spirit of Central Committee resolution No. 20, that “Health is the most precious capital of every citizen and of the whole society".
Distinguished leaders, I have often thought that in public health, it would be very helpful to be able to confidently predict what will happen in the future, to help us take the best possible decisions now.
The situation we face today is as close as we will ever get to having this chance. We absolutely know, without doubt, what will happen if we do not take strong action on new nicotine and tobacco products. We will soon see a new generation of people addicted to nicotine, and those individuals, their families, and the health system struggling to deal with the negative health impacts.
We have a chance to protect health and save lives, if we act now.
So, in conclusion, WHO urges Viet Nam, in the strongest possible terms, to ban the importation, manufacture, distribution, sale, advertising and promotion of all of these products – to protect health, especially this country’s most precious resource, the health of its children and young people.
Xin cảm ơn!