Title: Reaffirming support of fundamental United States principles at the United Nations and encouraging the World Health Organization to embrace technological advancements in tobacco control.
Policy area: International Affairs

Summary:
This resolution directs the Department of State and the Department of Health and Human Services to encourage the United Nations and the World Health Organization to adopt policies to advance technology and innovation that can reduce the burden of death and disease caused from cigarette smoking.

[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 896 Introduced in House (IH)]

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116th CONGRESS
  2d Session
H. RES. 896

  Reaffirming support of fundamental United States principles at the 
United Nations and encouraging the World Health Organization to embrace 
             technological advancements in tobacco control.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             March 11, 2020

    Mr. Reschenthaler submitted the following resolution; which was 
              referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs

_______________________________________________________________________

                               RESOLUTION


 
  Reaffirming support of fundamental United States principles at the 
United Nations and encouraging the World Health Organization to embrace 
             technological advancements in tobacco control.

Whereas the United Nations was established in part as a global forum to convene 
        disparate parties, resolve disputes, and establish policy 
        recommendations in a fair, equitable, and transparent manner;
Whereas the World Health Organization, an affiliated organization of the United 
        Nations, develops policy recommendations that severely restrict, or de 
        facto prohibit, interaction with legal private enterprise and thereby 
        provides no recourse or opportunity for input to those impacted 
        entities;
Whereas, in 2016, the World Health Organization adopted the Framework of 
        Engagement with Non-State Actors, commonly known as FENSA, which, by 
        design, effectively discourages interaction with the private sector;
Whereas the World Health Organization is actively targeting major American 
        industries, including agriculture, food and beverage, and pharmacology, 
        with onerous global regulations, and the World Health Organization's 
        policies targeting the tobacco sector outright prohibit communication, 
        engagement, or opportunity for partnership;
Whereas the World Health Organization is actively pressuring the entire United 
        Nations system, including the United Nations Secretary-General, 
        International Labor Organization, Food and Agriculture Organization, 
        Economic and Social Council, World Bank, and International Monetary 
        Fund, among others, to adopt similar policies with respect to the 
        tobacco sector;
Whereas the People's Republic of China owns China National Tobacco Corporation, 
        the largest tobacco company in the world, and this does not disqualify 
        the People's Republic of China from engaging in dialogue with and 
        receiving funds from the World Health Organization;
Whereas the World Health Organization's tobacco policy recommendations fail to 
        acknowledge that available science, technology, and innovation can 
        accelerate the decline of cigarette smoking worldwide and reduce 
        smoking-related death and disease;
Whereas although the best health outcome for current smokers is to quit nicotine 
        altogether, the reality is that less than 10 percent of adult smokers 
        will successfully quit cigarettes in a given year;
Whereas the Food and Drug Administration's tobacco control policy recognizes 
        this reality and provides global health regulators a pathway forward to 
        move adult smokers down the continuum of risk;
Whereas pursuant to the bipartisan Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control 
        Act, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) follows an inclusive, 
        transparent regulatory framework that promotes innovation in tobacco 
        products based on a rigorous scientific evaluation, including minimizing 
        unintended use of such products by nonsmokers, former smokers, and 
        youth, where only those products determined to be ``appropriate for the 
        protection of public health'' receive FDA authorization;
Whereas the FDA regularly engages the private sector in an open and transparent 
        manner regarding the development of such innovative products;
Whereas the World Health Organization continues to cite an irreconcilable and 
        inherent conflict to prohibit any engagement with or input from the 
        tobacco sector and does not acknowledge the Food and Drug 
        Administration's review and regulation of science, technology, and 
        innovation that can potentially reduce the harms associated with 
        cigarette smoking; and
Whereas policies based on the exclusion of any industry for which they seek to 
        regulate do not advance sound health policy, and are antithetical to 
        fundamental United States values of equal protection, free speech, due 
        process, and the right to petition: Now, therefore, be it
    Resolved, That the House of Representatives directs the Department 
of State and the Department of Health and Human Services to encourage 
the United Nations and the World Health Organization, respectively, to 
adopt policies that recognize the rights of disparate parties and 
scientific determinations of the Food and Drug Administration to 
advance technology and innovation that can reduce the burden of death 
and disease caused from cigarette smoking.
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