Appeal to WHO: Framework Convention on Alcohol Control

APHA believes that an international Framework Convention on Alcohol Control (FCAC) could thwart the expansion of alcohol markets and strengthen national and local regulation of alcohol.

“The global burden of disease for alcohol is approaching that of tobacco,” said Georges C. Benjamin, MD, FACP, executive director of APHA. “A framework convention on alcohol would help strengthen the hand of countries in setting policies that protect human health.”

Founded in 1872, the APHA is the oldest, largest and most diverse organization of public health professionals in the world. The association aims to protect all Americans and their communities from preventable, serious health threats and strives to assure community-based health promotion and disease prevention activities and preventive health services are universally accessible in the United States. APHA represents a broad array of health providers, educators, environmentalists, policy-makers and health officials at all levels working both within and outside governmental organizations and educational institutions. More information is available at www.apha.org.

On Tuesday, November 7, the APHA Governing Council adopted a statement submitted by the APHA Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drug Section; “A Call for a Framework Convention on Alcohol Control.”
The statement describes alcohol’s global burden of disease and social harm, lessons from the tobacco movement and the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), rationale for an international treaty on alcohol, and how the current climate favors an international treaty.

In conclusion “the American Public Health Association:
1. Calls on the World Health Organization to adopt and implement a binding international treaty, a Framework Convention on Alcohol Control, modeled after the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control;
2. Urges national public health organizations and other non-governmental organizations to support development of a Framework Convention on Alcohol Control; and
3. Solicits the U.S. government to support consideration of and planning for such Convention.”
The APHA statement was inspired, in part, by the 2005 World Medical Association (WMA) "Statement on Reducing the Global Impact of Alcohol on Health and Society" which urges National Medical Associations and all physicians to take a number of actions to help reduce the impact of alcohol on health and society including “consideration of a Framework Convention on Alcohol Control similar to that of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control that took effect on February 27, 2005.“

Presse release from APHA here.
Resolution from the WMA General Assembly 2005