The Healthy Caribbean Coalition (HCC) along with partners, the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Barbados (HSFB), the Heart Foundation of Jamaica (HFJ) and the Jamaica Youth Advocacy Network (JYAN), have launched “See the Truth”, a regional social media campaign to advocate for healthy food policies, like the front of package octagonal warning label (FOPWL), while building support for the implementation of measures to safeguard policymaking processes by highlighting industry interference tactics deployed during the front-of-package labelling decision-making process.

The campaign builds on past advocacy campaigns Make it Make Sense and People Over Profit campaigns, that aimed to build support for evidence-informed healthy food policies while highlighting the challenges of conflicts of interest and industry interference to policy development.

The Caribbean, like much of the world, is facing a health crisis fuelled by a rise in unhealthy diets with an excess of ultra-processed food products high in sodium, sugars, saturated fats and other additives. This diet is the leading risk factor for obesity and noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) such as diabetes, hypertension and some cancers. Policies such as FOPWL, specifically the octagonal warning labels, are needed to change our food environment to make the healthy choice, the easy choice. Many Caribbean countries have not implemented these policies despite endorsement by the World Health Organization/Pan American Health Organization (WHO/PAHO), the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) and local Ministries of Health. This is in part due to some food and beverage industry actors, who advance that they will lose profits with the introduction of this regulation, attempting to delay, dilute and derail healthy food policies. Industry interference and opposition to health policies like the octagonal warning label is delaying the Caribbean’s potential to achieve a healthier food environment, and by extension a healthier population.

Read the full press release

Photo: GETTY IMAGES

FAO: This will be a live stream on 1 February.

Deborah Chen, Executive Director of the HFJ, Board member of the Jamaica Coalition for Tobacco Control (JCTC) and Board member of the Global Alliance for Tobacco Control (GATC) and Barbara McGaw Tobacco Control Advisor, JCTC/HCC (inset pictures)  will be attending this important global meeting. The COP is held every 2 years. Parties to the WHO FCTC and to the Protocol will gather to make decisions to further protect people around the world from the devastating health, social, economic and environmental consequences of tobacco consumption and exposure to tobacco smoke, as well as to eliminate all forms of illicit trade in tobacco products

The Conference of the Parties (COP), as the Governing Body of the WHO FCTC, will review progress in the implementation of the WHO FCTC and take the next crucial steps to reaffirm the right of all people to the highest standard of health.

The Meeting of the Parties, the Governing Body of the Protocol, will address issues related to international trade in illicit tobacco and promote greater collaboration with government agencies, regional and international bodies, including those related to law enforcement and customs agencies, which are key partners in effectively implementing the Protocol.

Parties to the FCTC are also expected to be encouraged to classify and regulate nicotine vapes, snus, nicotine pouches and heated tobacco products in the same way as tobacco and combustible tobacco. This possibly risks removing or reducing access to safer options from people who already use them and may return to smoking—and from people who smoke and have the potential to switch and improve their health.

COP10 will have a significant influence how tobacco policies are implemented at a national level, which in turn will determine the future of safer nicotine products such as e-cigarettes, heat-not-burn products and nicotine pouches.

There will be official country representatives (mostly from Health, local and international NGOs, health organizations like WHO, PAHO, TFK, including several Caribbean countries with representatives from Government etc. Debbie Chen and Barbara McGaw are civil society champions of tobacco advocacy having pushed for tobacco control policies for the past three decades in the Caribbean. Their presence at the COP10 signals their ongoing commitment to the control of nicotine products in the Caribbean. Stay tuned in to see their thoughts and perspectives post the COP10.