FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb once quipped that cigarettes were the “only legal consumer product that, when used as intended, will kill half of all long-term users.”
What may come as a surprise to many Americans, though, is that roughly half of the 80,000 to 100,000 children worldwide who take up smoking every day live in Asia. The region is now the world’s largest tobacco market. Global smoking deaths are expected to total 1 billion over the course of this century, up from 100 million during the 20th century—the large majority of these deaths in developing countries.1
WHO tobacco advisor Michael Daube has described tobacco’s expansion in these poor nations as nothing short of a “tobacco holocaust.”
Listen as Eventide CEO Robin John explains why we screen for tobacco use in our products and how many investors may be unknowingly investing in companies that perpetuate this harmful epidemic.
