Year of the Lung 2010

Every year has various global themes and 2010 has been designated The Year of the Lung. A declaration was published back in December that highlights the main aims of the organisers.

Hundreds of millions of people struggle each year for life and breath due to lung diseases, including tuberculosis, asthma, pneumonia, influenza, lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD), and more than 10 million die.

Chronic respiratory diseases cause approximately 7% of all deaths worldwide and represent 4% of the global burden of disease.

Tobacco use remains legal, although it kills more than 5 million people each year, including 1.3 million who die of lung cancer, and it affects the health of hundreds of thousands of others who are exposed to its effects secondhand.

Although it will be the 3rd leading cause of death worldwide by 2020, COPD is frequently not diagnosed.

There are more disturbing statistics in the declaration; I just highlighted a few. But the Year of the Lung organisers are well aware that lung diseases are low on the list of politically sensitive health issues and that many people in the world live in highly polluted environments. I suspect these two facts are not unrelated.

The WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control is being implemented with expected slowness. I have long suspected that cigarette smoke was an easier target than controlling air pollution. As nicotine addicts are slowly tempted into smokeless products it will take many decades before authorities will admit that polluted cities (as well as agricultural pollutants in the countryside) are as much, if not more, to blame for the rise in respiratory diseases. Implementing a Clean Air Act in all the world's polluted cities will do more for people than paying for medicines after the event.

However, I shan't be holding my breath.