Distinguished recipients of WHO "Tobacco or Health" medals: After I have heard the three very elegant speeches, it's very hard for me to follow and difficult even to find one word, and to say or to aid these three speakers. But as a pediatrician myself, as a professional, of course now I'm working in the WHO, I think that there is a no more appropriate place than to have this subject held in this Child Health 2000 Conference. I just want to add a little story on this. When Professor Tze came to WHO last year, to prepare for this conference, he came to see Dr. Nakajima and myself. I said we would have such a conference, and whether WHO was going to support. We said yes, certainly. Child Health 2000, that is WHO, UNICEF and all our people in the Child Summit, we are going to support this. But I said it would be a little difficult because we have the No-Tobacco Day on this particular period. Where should we have this meeting? He said in Canada. I said that is good, if the Canadian government will host this No-Tobacco Day in that place. That will be wonderful because Canada is an example in this area. And he said wait a minute I will discuss with my Ministers and Prime Ministers to see whether it is agreeable. And then one month later, Dr. Tze called and said yes. Then I said to Dr. Nakajima, I said now we have good news here. So let us ask our moderator, Dr. Menchaca said this is the first time WHO will have our Tobacco or Health Day outside the WHO executive board room, and move it to here, and to get all of your support here so we are really grateful for these efforts. So I would like again to thank the host and to the organizers, to give us these good opportunities.
I think, as the Honourable Minister Shalala has also said, in most areas of the world, like in the United States, the overwhelming majority of people who began to use tobacco products started in adolescence. Before the age of 19. In Canada and in many other countries, over 90% of the people who start smoking are in their teen years. The country I know best, in China, they have also given statistics around the secondary schools or the middle schools. They also find that 40% of the male students have started smoking. So this is really an alarming situation. I can only echo the words that Dr. David Kesela, the Commissioner of the United States Food and Drug Administration, who recently said that nicotine addiction begins when most of the tobacco users are teenagers. So this is really a pediatric disease. Many of the statistics have shown very clearly an estimation of all beginning smokers, who started using tobacco in adolescence, and continue smoking throughout their life, half will be killed by tobacco. And half of those will die from the tobacco related disease before the age of seventy. Those who die before the age of seventy, from the tobacco related causes will rise on an average of twenty two years of their life expectancy.
If the current smoking trends continue, WHO estimates that we can expect 200 to 300 million children and adolescents under twenty years of age today will eventually die because of tobacco. Of course the key to lessen this impact of roaming epidemic is primarily prevention. For every two children who are prevented from ever becoming lifelong smokers, one future tobacco related death will be prevented. At the limit, the epidemic of tobacco caused mortality would eventually disappear entirely provided that hence forward, no one ever started smoking. I will tell you another story about a distinguished British epidemiologist, who first observed that smoking was associated with lung cancer in 1950. He has learned a lesson early, that the target should be at the young child.
One billion adults, one third of the adult population in the world are smoking. And they also learned when smoking is socially acceptable in the work-place, at home at social gatherings and in the public place, I'll tell you about China, the county I know best, that when young people start to learn about business, the first thing they learn is to take a cigarette as the start of a dialogue. So if that is the situation, and no matter how much we have put a health warning on the package of the smoke, what they have been taught at school, they wanted to learn the adults behaviour, and how they are working and the adolescents say the adult people are strange beings. They preach one thing and practice the opposite. So I think that everybody agrees that practice is a much more powerful teaching tool than the preachings. So all of us here, we should make an example here ourselves. How should the cycle of this be broken? WHO governing body has adapted a serious resolution that calls for the members of state to adopt comprehensive tobacco control policies and programs and simultaneously addressed to all aspects of the tobacco problems. Our members of state, like Canada, that have done so including in their policies a ban on tobacco advertising and health warnings on the package of the tobacco products, higher taxes on the tobacco products, increasing expenditures on the tobacco control strategies offset in part by revenue from the taxes on the tobacco products or tobacco companies. Effective protection from the involuntary exposure to the tobacco smoking in public places, transport and work-places, and even when I walk in the street, many of the shops said no smoking. And they have so many policies already implemented in Canada, and I should not repeat everything as already our Honourable Minister has given this experience.
Here in Canada, British Columbians are pioneers in this country. As a result, in 1979, before these policies began to be implemented, 46% of Canadian teenagers age 15-16 were smokers. In 1994 this percentage was dramatically lowered to 29%. In British Columbia it is lowest among Canadian provinces at 24% so we should congratulate the Canadians and especially the British Columbians for setting good examples.
As health professionals representing at this conference, we have key roles in helping to slow down the progress of the tobacco epidemic. Your roles are extended beyond giving advice to your patients. Your role will be extended beyond giving examples of not practicing their smoking throughout their own life. Your role is extended to the working place, and the institutes. I have met some co-fellows from China, they are among you in the participation. They come to this building, they feel a little bit ashamed because they are smoking. They say that definitely today I will not smoke in this building. But I say no! You should continue, this is only the start of you quitting today. I hope you will never touch the cigarettes from today and for your life. And you will also go back to China and set examples in your health bureaus and in your hospitals and in your families. So I congratulate you for starting no smoking today. Our children look to all of us as adults to set good examples. As I am a pediatrician, as yesterday we all said so many kind words to Mr. Grant, and he loves all the children, we all love the children. We fight for the reduction of infant mortality. All the governments follow the health for all strategy at the child summit. We spend all the money from the government and NGO's and societies, and we want to reduce mortality. After all, one third of our adolescents have started smoking and they will be killed by tobacco and what a waste of all these efforts. So the future good health of our children will depend largely on our collective success. And let's control this tobacco epidemic for our children.