Smoking imposes costs up 2 pct of global GDP: report
Singapore (Reuters) – the habit of smoking costs the world a 1 to 2 percent of its Gross domestic product each year and it could kill nearly one billion people this century, said the authors of the fourth edition of the tobacco Atlas during the launch of the book in Singapore. Economic losses include direct costs and indirect, as medical expenses to treat diseases related to smoking and the value of productivity lost, said the authors of the book, which is published by the American Cancer Society and the worldwide Foundation of the Lung. The cost of smoking could be even greater, as maintains it one of the authors of the book, Hana Ross, saying that they are difficult to measure intangible costs such as suffering from the members of the family or the pain felt by patients. “during the 20th century, smoking killed 100 million of “ people. “It is estimated that in the 21st century you will kill 1 billion people”, said the lead author of the book, Michael Eriksen in the launch during a global Conference of health in Singapore. The world’s population has grown by more than four times in the last century, passing 7,000 million people mark the last year. Eriksen said that there are about 1,000 million users of tobacco worldwide and 360,000 non smokers die each year because of exposure to second...
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