[Intl-tobacco] Mexican health secretary says tobacco controversy won't hurt WHO bid]

[robert weissman]

Mexican health secretary says tobacco controversy won't hurt WHO bid
International Herald Tribune
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/10/25/america/LA_GEN_Mexico_WHO.php
The Associated Press

Mexico's health secretary said Wednesday he is confident that criticism
over work he did with tobacco companies won't affect his bid to be the
next director-general of the World Health Organization.

Julio Frenk, 53, has taken heat for a plan he set up in 2004 under which
cigarette companies paid one peso (about 10 U.S. cents; =E2=82=AC.08) from =
each
pack sold to a charitable fund he managed. Cigarettes sell for about 20
pesos a pack in Mexico.

The next year, Frenk supported the companies in resisting a proposal to
raise their taxes by 20 percent, leading newspapers and lawmakers to
suggest he had cut a back-room deal.

On Wednesday, he denied that he had done anything unethical.

"It is normal to attack a candidate who is seen as strong," Frenk told a
group of foreign correspondents.

Frenk said the fund he set up with the tobacco money has gone toward a
number of good causes, such as helping children suffering from cancer.

The health secretary is one of 11 candidates to replace Lee Jong-wook,
who died in May two years before the end of his term as director-general
of the WHO. The U.N. agency said it would decide on a successor at a
special session of the World Health Assembly on Nov. 9.

Frenk also said that if he gets the job, he will not set up a similar
donation fund.

"In no way am I suggesting that (the donation scheme) should be used
outside the country," he said. "It was an answer to the realities of
Mexico."

Rival candidates for the WHO position include Hong Kong's Margaret Chan
=E2=80=94 who has been spearheading the agency's campaign against bird flu =
=E2=80=94 and
former French Health Minister Bernard Kouchner.

Frenk has drawn international attention for his recently implemented
health insurance plan for poor Mexicans, seen as a model of innovative
health reform in a developing country.