The Health Promotion Administration (HPA) stands by its “no smoking is best” stance, but recognizes the reality that people will smoke, former HPA director-general Wu Chao-chun (吳昭軍) said in an interview published yesterday, a day after he retired from the position.
Wu made the comments in an interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) about the controversy over the conditional approval of 14 heated tobacco products.
The Taiwan Alliance on Banning Cigarettes staged a protest in front of the agency yesterday during the handover ceremony between Wu and the new director-general, Shen Ching-fen (沈靜芬).
Photo: Yu An-ting, Taipei Times
Heated tobacco products are still tobacco products, and the Tobacco Hazards Prevention Act (菸害防制法) forbids any such products from mentioning that they had “passed health risk assessments” or “are better than traditional cigarettes,” the alliance said.
Taiwan and the US are the only countries around the world that mandated an official evaluation of the effects of heated tobacco products before allowing their sale, Wu said.
The decision was not made in haste, and the issue underwent reviews by two separate committees, 60 meetings and involved experts in medicine, toxicology, epidemiology and public health, Wu said.
He said the conclusion of the evaluation happened to coincide with his stepping down and had nothing to do with the end of his term.
The agency stands by its stance that “no smoking is the best,” Wu said, but added that a zero-smoking society was difficult to attain and that tobacco products are unfortunately in demand.
The agency will continue discussions on the types of additives that should not be allowed in tobacco products to prevent manufacturers from adding them to attract younger users, Wu said.
However, that issue is separate from heated tobacco product reviews, he added.
Meanwhile, the agency is aiming to reduce cancer-related deaths by one-third by 2030 and this year expanded screening eligibility for five types of cancers: breast cancer, cervical cancer, colorectal cancer, oral cancer and lung cancer, Wu said.
The agency is also to launch government-funded screening for stomach cancer starting next year, he said.
As of last month, publicly funded screening had benefited 3.8 million people, an increase of 700,000 from last year, Wu said, adding that the agency hoped to screen 6.7 million people this year.
Early-stage screening is the only way to decrease cancer-related deaths, Wu said, encouraging people to take the test and undergo treatment if needed and avoid huge medical bills.
As for stomach cancers, Wu said that Helicobacter pylori was detected in 70 to 80 percent of people who were diagnosed with the disease.
The agency is expanding the screening program for stomach cancer to 17 cities and counties this year.
It hopes to establish a standard procedure across the nation, as early treatment is 90 percent effective, compared with only 10 percent for stage four cancer, he said.
Wu began his service at the agency in 2019 as deputy director-general and was promoted to director-general in 2021.
He thanked his colleagues at the agency, former ministers of health and welfare Hsueh Jui-yuan (薛瑞元) and Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), as well as Minister of Health and Welfare Chiu Tai-yuan (邱泰源) and the president.
Wu said that without their help, he would not have been able to grow the budget for the agency from NT$1.7 billion (US$56.6 million) to NT$12 billion.
Chiu also expressed his support for the new director-general, who was the director of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Division at National Cheng Kung University Hospital
Shen is a professional and has a solid academic background, Chiu said.
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