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NFL BIOSCIENCES, which is committed to the fight against smoking, fully supports World No Tobacco Day on May 31
NFL BIOSCIENCES, a biopharmaceutical company developing botanical drugs for the treatment of addictions, including NFL-101, a smoking cessation aid drug candidate currently in a Phase II/III clinical trial in France, fully endorses the message and call to action for World No Tobacco Day on May 31, 2022, led by the World Health Organization, with environmental protection as this year’s theme.
The World Health Organization (WHO) launched World No Tobacco Day in 1987 to help build increased awareness worldwide of the smoking epidemic and its potentially deadly effects. Smoking is the biggest avoidable epidemic facing healthcare professionals, and the tobacco industry also has harmful impacts in terms of the environment and climate, as highlighted by the WHO in its annual campaign #TobaccoExposed1. This year, the WHO has chosen to highlight tobacco’s impact on the environment: 600 million trees have been chopped down and 22 billion liters of water are needed to produce cigarettes, while 84 million tons of CO2 have been released into the atmosphere, contributing to the rise in temperatures around the world, not to mention the widespread waste, toxins and microplastic pollution resulting from the production and consumption of tobacco.
Looking beyond the environmental damage and climate impacts, tobacco is of course a global public health issue. 1.3 billion people smoke around the world and tobacco results in more than 8 million deaths each year, including 75,000 in France. The costs in terms of healthcare and loss of productivity due to premature deaths and illnesses are considerable: 2,000 billion dollars per year. 2
As highlighted by the WHO in its call to action, stopping smoking has beneficial effects for people’s health and the environment.
Bruno Lafont, Chief Operating Officer and co-founder of NFL Biosciences: “In the last few years, there has been a real increase in awareness of the negative impacts of tobacco on people’s health and the environment, as well as its human and financial costs for society worldwide. Both individually and collectively, from public authorities to businesses and civil society, we all have a duty to take action and support the initiatives to fight against smoking and its disastrous consequences. At NFL Biosciences, fighting addictions is what guides us every day, and we have chosen to develop innovative botanical drugs to help people who would like to stop smoking. This is where our expertise is driving progress in order to meet these challenges for future generations”.