[Intl-tobacco] AP: Mexican health minister defends tobacco record in bid for top WHO job

[robert weissman]

Mexican health minister defends tobacco record in bid for top WHO job
The Associated Press
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2006
GENEVA Mexico's health minister, who is standing for the job of
director-general of the World Health Organization, defended his record
on tobacco control Tuesday, saying his country was one of those that had
made the greatest progress on anti-smoking measures.

"We still have a long way to go, and I would be the first one to
recognize that," Julio Frenk told reporters in Geneva during a
whistle-stop tour to promote his candidacy. "But compared to where we
were in 2000...I think Mexico is one of the countries that has made the
most strides."

Frenk has been criticized by anti-tobacco groups for allegedly imposing
lighter restrictions than demanded by the WHO Framework Convention on
Tobacco Control, which Mexico has ratified.

The Washington-based Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids said in a statement
Monday that Frenk's record on implementing the framework "could in fact
provide a road map of how tobacco companies can undermine the treaty by
entering into voluntary agreements with governments on weak half-measures."

It said Frenk had agreed not to impose a ban on billboard advertising in
return for donations by major tobacco companies towards a public health
insurance.

But Frenk, who has been minister of health since 2000 and previously was
a high-level official at the WHO from 1998 to 2000, said Mexico had
followed a vigorous anti-tobacco campaign.

"We multiplied by five the tax rate for filtered cigarettes," Frenk
said. "We achieved a total ban of advertisement on radio and TV, which
believe me none of my predecessors had achieved because the economic
interests there are very powerful."

He also noted that warning labels had been moved from the side of the
packet and now cover half of the front. A ban on smoking in schools and
selling cigarettes around schools, as well as a sevenfold increase in
anti-smoking clinics were also implemented, Frenk said.

The Mexican is up against 13 nominees to succeed Lee Jong-wook, who died
in May two years before the end of his term. The U.N. agency said it
would decide on a new director-general at a special session of the
agency's governing World Health Assembly on Nov. 9.

The other candidates include Hong Kong's Margaret Chan =97 who has been
spearheading WHO's campaign against bird flu =97 and former French Health
Minister Bernard Kouchner.

Frenk, 53, said he would visit 29 of the 34 WHO board member states and
hoped the successful candidate would be chosen on merit, rather than
political considerations.

His recent implementation of a health insurance scheme for poor Mexicans
received widespread attention as an example of innovative health reform
in a developing country.