Global Health Perspectives with Derek Yach

James K. Glassman served as US Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs during the George W. Bush administration, leading the government-wide global strategic communications effort. He was also Chairman of the US Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees Voice of America and other government-sponsored TV, radio, and Internet broadcasting. He was confirmed unanimously by the US Senate for both positions and holds the lifetime rank of Ambassador. James K. Glassman serves as Chair of the Commission to Reignite the Fight Against Smoking. The commission and its staff will launch a report that offers facts, analysis, and recommendations aimed at reinvigorating a noble effort that has stalled. Mired in an outdated paradigm, it has been superseded by new technology, new ideas, and new concerns for neglected communities. The commission will also recommend a set of actions to accelerate an end to adult smoking and other toxic tobacco use.

Anupam Manur is an Assistant Professor at the Takshashila Institution. His research interests lie at the intersection of economics, technology, and public policy. He is currently working on platform economics, India's ongoing jobs crisis, digital payments, and the New World Order. He has published several articles in the leading newspapers in India. He has also edited three books under the Takshashila Institution Press. Anupam teaches Economic Reasoning for Public Policy and Macroeconomics in all of Takshashila's public policy programmes.

A discussion between Dr Derek Yach, President of the Foundation, and Professor Mary Neuburger, Director of the Center for Russia, East European and Eurasian Studies at the University of Texas, Austin. Mary is also the author of Balkan Smoke, a compelling book on tobacco and the making of modern Bulgaria. Derek and Mary discuss the deep-rooted history of tobacco dating back to the Ottoman coffee houses of the late 1800s, its effect on wartime culture and the post-war economic boom.

Cother Hajat is a Fellow of both the Royal College of Physicians (FRCP) and the Faculty of Public Health (FFPH) in the UK and adjunct Professor of Public Health at UAE University. Throughout her career she has focussed on the prevention of chronic disease and its risk factors through thought leadership, policy development, health system redesign and research in academic, commercial and governmental settings. Smoking cessation and tobacco control policy are amongst Cother's main interests having worked on the ban of smoking in public places in both the UK and Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Cother is a physician and holds a MPH and PhD from King's College London. Her work has featured at the UN General Assembly Meeting, the World Health Assembly, the World Economic Forum, TEDx, the Economist Magazine as well as numerous scientific journal articles, books, magazines, newspaper editorials and blogs. She regularly presents her work as keynote and invited speaker at International Scientific conferences and meetings.

Our last podcast episode of the year recaps the 2020 show highlights. The topics covered include how COVID19 pandemic intertwined with smoking and the efforts to improve access to cessation and harm reduction. Our hope is that people see the role #harmreduction can play in ending the pandemic in 2021 and smoking, the world's most preventable cause of death and disease.

Bengt Wiberg is the former CFO that became the involuntary inventor of a greatly improved new pouch technology for any type of oral nicotine products. When his dentist told him to quit snus due to gum problems, Bengt wanted to find a solution that allowed him to enjoy tobacco without having to revert to smoking, (like many Swedes, he had moved to less harmful snus). Bengt's idea was to place a barrier between the snus and his gum to reduce irritation. Through his work he found he was able to reduce the unpleasant “sting” that often prevents people from enjoying snus. He discovered that his invention could make smokeless oral nicotine products more accessible to adults. The great implication is that this could help millions of men and women who smoke migrate to a less harmful snus or nicotine pouch. Bengt's inventions were recognized at the Global Tobacco and Nicotine Forum in New York City 2017 where he won the coveted Golden Leaf Award for “Most exciting newcomer to the industry”.

William's inspiring story is told in his New York Times bestselling memoir The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, co-authored with Bryan Mealer, and in the Netflix film adaptation, directed by Chiwetel Ejiofor, which was awarded the Alfred P. Sloan Prize at the Sundance Film festival. Since its debut, William's book has been published in two additional editions, a young readers version, and a children's book. The autobiography has sold more than 1 million copies and been translated in nearly twenty languages worldwide. William has been featured on The Wall Street Journal, Nyasa Times, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and Good Morning America with Diane Sawyer. After graduating from Dartmouth College in Environmental Studies, William began work as a Global Fellow for the design firm IDEO.org. William is an entrepreneur, TED Fellow, and has worked with the WiderNet Project to develop appropriate technologies curriculums focused on bridging the gap between “knowing” and “doing” for young people in Malawi and across the world. William splits his time between the U.S. and Malawi and is currently working full-time with the Moving Windmills Project to bring the Moving Windmills Innovation Center to life in Kasungu, Malawi. https://movingwindmills.org/

Harry Shapiro is the director of DrugWise, an online drug information service, and managing editor of DS Daily, an online drug, alcohol and tobacco news service. He has worked in the drug industry for 40 years, first with the Institute for the Study of Drug Dependence and then with DrugScope, where he was director of communications until the charity folded in 2015. He was DrugScope's main media spokesperson, managing editor of Druglink magazine, and he has written and lectured extensively on all aspects of drugs and drug-related issues. Shapiro is a member of the U.K. Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs and the secretariat of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Prescribed Drug Dependence. Since 2015, he has turned his attention to the world of tobacco harm reduction, working with Knowledge-Action-Change, a U.K.-based organization promoting public health through harm reduction. In this capacity, he is the author and executive editor of the Global State of Tobacco Harm Reduction report, contributes a regular blog to Nicotine Science and Policy and has been rapporteur for—and speaker at—the Global Forum on Nicotine conference. Harry Shapiro is the head writer and editor of the "Burning Issues" report https://bit.ly/35t7mVR.

Dr. Cummings is a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences and member of the Hollings Cancer Center's Cancer Control Program at the Medical University of South Carolina where he co-leads the tobacco control research program. He is widely recognized for his research on smoking behavior, product marketing, consumer risk perceptions, and the influence of cigarette design on smoking behavior. Dr. Cummings has authored over 500 peer-reviewed scientific papers as well as contributing to reports for the Office of the Surgeon General, the National Cancer Institute, the Institute of Medicine, and the International Agency for Research on Cancer. In the late 1990s, Dr. Cummings was involved in digitizing and indexing millions of pages of previously secret internal tobacco industry documents which have helped to uncover how cigarette manufacturers directed their marketing to attract youthful replacement smokers and designed cigarettes in ways that make it hard for smokers to quit once they get addicted to nicotine. He has served as an expert witness in litigation against cigarette manufacturers many trials and received numerous awards acknowledging his research contributions to public health and tobacco control.

Founder and president of the Global Tobacco and Nicotine Forum (GTNF) launched in 2008, Elise Rasmussen is the executive director of the GTNF Trust. The Trust was established in 2019 and embodies the influential Vapor Voice and Tobacco Reporter magazines, as well as the GTNF. Elise is co-founder and chairwoman of Women In Tobacco, an association for women working for or connected with the tobacco and nicotine industries. She was recently promoted to Third Warden of the Worshipful Company of Tobacco Pipe Makers and Tobacco Blenders, one of the City of London's historic livery companies; only the second time a woman has been elected as Warden of the Company. Elise was awarded the Freedom of the City of London in 2013. In 2017, she received a Voices of Freedom Award from FOREST, a prominent UK-based organization campaigning for nicotine adult consumer rights.

Karl Fagerström was born in Sweden in 1946. He studied at the University of Uppsala and graduated as a licensed clinical psychologist 1975. At that time, he started a smoking cessation clinic and invented the Fagerstrom Test for Cigarette Dependence. In 1981 he got his Ph.D. on a dissertation about nicotine dependence and smoking cessation. In the end of the seventies and early eighties he served as the editor-in-chief for the Scandinavian Journal for Behaviour Therapy. From 1983 through 1997 he worked for Pharmacia & Upjohn as Director of Scientific Information for Nicotine Replacement Products. He has worked with the nicotine gum Nicorette since 1975 and has been contributing to NRT developments such as patch, spray, pouch and inhaler. Ever since 1975 to 2010 he has been working clinically part-time. From 1997 to 2008 he worked with his private research clinic where he studied various drugs intended for treating nicotine dependence. Currently, he works with his own private consultancy (Fagerstrom Consulting). He is a founding member of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco and was the Deputy Editor of Nicotine & Tobacco Research from 2007-2018. He started the European SRNT affiliate in 1999 of which he has been the president up to 2003. His main research contributions have been in the fields of Behaviour Medicine, Tobacco, and Nicotine with 170 peer-reviewed publications of which he is the first author of 100. The current main interests are on understanding the positive effects of nicotine and reducing harm and exposure to tobacco toxins among all those who cannot give up smoking. He was awarded the WHO medal 1999 for outstanding work in tobacco control and 2013 he was the recipient of the Award on Clinical Science from the Society for Research on Tobacco and Nicotine.

Dr Sudhanshu Patwardhan is British-Indian, UK licensed Medical Doctor, passionate about helping people quit risky tobacco. Dr Sud, as he is mostly referred as, splits time between the UK and South Asia on tobacco harm reduction projects that address the needs of the most disadvantaged and neglected tobacco users. In 2018, he co-founded the Centre for Health Research and Education (CHRE) with his physician wife and now they work with a team of over 40 medical and public health experts on cancer prevention projects in the UK and South Asia. CHRE was partially funded by a grant from the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World.

Daniel Malan is an assistant professor in business ethics at Trinity Business School, Trinity College Dublin. Daniel recently released a report titled, "Contradictions and Conflicts" (https://bit.ly/32xP9oD) where he analyzes the fundamental conflicts among 17 governments that claim a commitment to the World Health Organization's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, while also owning major stakes in tobacco companies. This report was made possible by a grant from the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World. He is a former associate professor in ethics and governance and director of the Centre for Corporate Governance in Africa at the University of Stellenbosch Business School in South Africa, as well as a former visiting scholar at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. His focus areas are business ethics, corporate governance and corporate responsibility. He is the co-chair of the B20 Task Force on Integrity and Compliance (2020), a member of the Global Future Council on Transparency and Anti-Corruption of the World Economic Forum, a member of the International Corporate Governance Network's Disclosure and Transparency Committee and the regional partner for Africa at the International Center for Corporate Governance in St Gallen, Switzerland. He has consulted to the World Economic Forum, United Nations, International Finance Corporation as well as various large corporations and has worked in 41 countries. Previously he was an associate director with KPMG Forensic, where he was responsible for ethics and integrity services. His qualifications include a PhD in Business Administration, a Masters degree in Philosophy as well as a Masters degree in Business Administration (MBA), all from the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa.

Tony Leon is the Executive Chairman of Resolve Communications (Pty) Ltd, a South African consultancy specialising in crisis communications, reputation management, government relations and advocacy. He is also a noted author, columnist and speaker. His recently published (May 2014) memoir “Opposite Mandela-Encounters with South Africa's Icon” has drawn critical acclaim. He was appointed by President Jacob Zuma as the South African Ambassador to Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay in August 2009. Since returning from his three year post in Buenos Aires in September 2012, Tony Leon has been thinking, writing, speaking and about matters in South Africa and the world. He consults to businesses both locally and abroad and has a special interest in risk consulting on Africa and South America and on navigating the intricacies of the booming markets of South America.

Donald Kenkel's expertise is in areas of health economics and public sector economics. Broadly speaking, most of his research is on the economics of disease prevention and health promotion. He is the author of the chapter on "Prevention" in the Handbook of Health Economics (2000). With external funding from the National Institutes of Health, he has conducted a series of studies on the economics of public health policies, including: alcohol taxes and other policies to prevent alcohol problems (Journal of Applied Econometrics 2001, American Economic Review Papers & Proceedings 2005); cigarette taxes to prevent youth smoking (Journal of Political Economy 2002, Journal of Health Economics 2008); and advertising to promote smoking cessation (Journal of Political Economy 2007). His more recent research is on the economics of cigarette sales on Indian reservations (National Tax Journal 2015), the economics of tobacco regulation (Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis 2015, Journal of Economic Literature forthcoming), and the market for e-cigarettes (Journal of Health Economics 2019, Journal of Risk & Uncertainty 2020). Another area of research and teaching interest is in cost-benefit analysis of public policies, especially policies that affect health. Kenkel is a former President of the Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis. From July 2018 through April 2020 he was a Senior Economist and then Chief Economist at the Council of Economic Advisers in the Executive Office of the President. Donald Kenkel received a grant from the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World in 2020.

Karen E. Nelson, Ph.D. is the President of the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI), which has received a grant from the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World. Prior to being appointed President, she held a number of other positions at the Institute, including Director of JCVI's Rockville Campus, and Director of Human Microbiology and Metagenomics in the Department of Human Genomic Medicine at JCVI. Dr. Nelson received her undergraduate degree from the University of the West Indies, and her Ph.D. from Cornell University. She has authored or co-authored over 200 peer reviewed publications, edited three books, and is currently Editor-in-Chief of the journal Microbial Ecology. Dr. Nelson is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences. Other honors include being named ARCS Scientist of the Year 2017; a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology; being inducted into the Indian National Academy of Sciences in 2018; and being appointed an Honorary Professor at the University of the West Indies as well as a Helmholtz International Fellow. Dr. Nelson has extensive experience in microbial ecology, microbial genomics, microbial physiology and metagenomics. Dr. Nelson has led several genomic and metagenomic efforts, and led the first human metagenomics study that was published in 2006. Additional ongoing studies in her group include metagenomic approaches to study the ecology of the gastrointestinal tract of humans and animals, studies on the relationship between the microbiome and various human and animal disease conditions, reference genome sequencing and analysis primarily for the human body, and other -omics studies.

Kevin McGirr is a clinical professor with Community Health Systems at UCSF, which has received a grant from the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World. For decades, Kevin has worked on understanding the relationship between people with mental health, substance use, and tobacco. People who have mental-health conditions smoke at up to five times the rate of others in the population. Although these individuals often want to quit, their success rates are relatively low. People who live with mental-health conditions have substantially higher comorbidities and die 5 to 20 years before other members of the general population. McGirr compiled an extensive body of information applicable to health-care professionals. He devised a three-year observational study that gave people flexibility to choose a preferred harm-reduction method, or they could opt out. Each study participant also received six months of intensive habit-change coaching, which was well received. Enrollment began in January but was quickly sidetracked by the pandemic. McGirr's team are now working on enrolling patients in single-occupancy hotels, methadone clinics, and other venues. Additionally, they have expanded their geography from San Francisco to the whole Bay Area, and they might expand further. Results from the first cohort are expected in August.

Samrat Chowdhery has been a journalist for two decades with stints in mainline newspapers in India. He leads the consumer movement for lower-risk alternatives in the country and is involved in tobacco harm reduction advocacy since 2014, building grassroots resistance to anti-THR policies through consultations with authorities and stakeholders, identifying and seeding research opportunities and creating awareness about THR through public dialogues. Mr. Chowdhery is the president of International Network of Nicotine Consumer Organisations (INNCO), which has received a grant from the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World. INNCO represents the interests of users of safer nicotine products and smokers who may choose to transition in the future. Mr. Chowdhery was honoured with ‘Advocate of the Year' award at Global Forum for Nicotine (GFN) held in Warsaw in June 2018. Among other advocacy and research initiatives, he is currently working on evaluating the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of lower-risk alternatives for bidi smokers and smokeless tobacco users in India.

Dr. Corinna Lathan is CEO and founder of AnthroTronix, Inc., a biomedical engineering research and development company creating innovative products in digital health, wearable technology, robotics, and augmented reality. Dr. Lathan is a member of the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World's Board of Directors. Dr. Lathan has served as principal investigator on multiple grants from funding agencies such as DARPA, NASA, NIH, and NSF. Most recently, Dr. Lathan led the AnthroTronix team to develop DANA™, an FDA-cleared, mobile digital health software platform for the Department of Defense as a deployed diagnostic support to evaluate cognitive function during treatment for depression, brain injury, and post-traumatic stress. For this work, she was named a 2017 Woman to Watch by Disruptive Women in Health Care. Dr. Lathan is founding co-chair of the World Economic Forum's Global Future Council on Human Enhancement and is a thought leader on technology trends that impact health and health care. Dr. Lathan has been featured in Forbes, Time, and the New Yorker magazines, and her work has led to such distinctions as Maryland's “Top Innovator of the Year,” MIT Technology Review magazine's “Top 100 World Innovators,” and one of Fast Company magazine's “Most Creative People in Business.” Dr. Lathan was named a Technology Pioneer and a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and served as chair of their Global Agenda Council for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics. Dr. Lathan serves as a director of PTC, Inc., a global technology provider of Internet of Things (IoT) and Augmented Reality platforms, and is a member of the audit committee. She also serves as a director of the non-profit boards Engineering World Health and the KID-Museum, and she is on the advisory board of the Smithsonian Institute's Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation. Before founding AnthroTronix, Dr. Lathan was an associate professor of biomedical engineering at The Catholic University of America and an adjunct associate professor of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park. Dr. Lathan received her BA in biopsychology and mathematics from Swarthmore College, and an MS in aeronautics and astronautics and PhD in neuroscience from MIT.

Dr. Villoo Morawala-Patell, Founder and CMD of Avesthagen Limited and The Avestagenome Project® is an innovator, involved in international biotechnology development, academic and corporate leadership with a longstanding interest in global development leading to establishment of global networks and alliances with academia and industry. She is an experienced deal maker having raised capital from PE and strategic financing with firms and foundations globally. Dr. Villoo Patell is the recipient of many awards of international and national acclaim as a scientist and as an entrepreneur including the French National Order “L'officier du Merite”, ‘Karmaveer Puraskar' award, “Parsi Entrepreneur par Excellence Award”, “Outstanding women entrepreneur of the year” awards. Her academic research experience spans research work at highly reputed institutions globally, including ICRISAT, IBMP-CNRS, Strasbourg, University of Ghent, NCBS-TIFR. Prior to embarking on her entrepreneurial journey. She has been the recipient of grants from many prestigious institutions like the J.N. TATA, Rockefeller Foundation, IFCPAR, USAID (US Agency for International Development), DFID (Department for International Development, in the United Kingdom), World Bank and currently a grant awardee from the Foundation for Smoke Free World (FSFW). Dr. Villoo Patell's international biotechnology experience coupled with her longstanding interest in global development from building international networks and alliances with academia and industry led to her founding Avesthagen Limited. Avesthagen Limited is built around the convergence of food, pharma, environment-adjusted agriculture, and population genomics, leading to predictive, preventive, and personalized healthcare driven by a systems biology approach to population genetics and food security. For more about Villoo's recent work: https://bit.ly/2BYQkSV

Konstantinos E. Farsalinos, M.D., is a senior researcher at the Department of Pharmacy-University of Patras and the school of Public Health-University of West Attica. He is also an adjunct professor at King AbdulAziz University in Jeddah. He has been conducting laboratory and clinical research on e-cigarettes as a principal investigator since 2011. Examples of his work include the first study on the cytotoxic effects of e-cigarette vapor on cultured cells and the immediate effects of e-cigarette use on cardiac function and coronary circulation. As of late 2019, he has published more than 80 studies and articles in international peer-reviewed scientific journals about tobacco harm reduction. He has been recognized as one of the world's most influential researchers of the past decade by Web of Science, receiving the Highly Cited Researcher 2019 recognition. Click here for more about Konstantinos' recent work: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2040622320935765

Francois Millard is Senior Vice President at Vitality Group, a member of South Africa-based Discovery Holdings Limited. He leads Vitality's sciences agenda and the practical application thereof. Areas of current focus includes Covid-19 resilience linked to behavioral risks, lifelong health & financial security, corporate health and sustainability, along with the application of data, design, technology, incentives, behavioral economics to improve outcomes in these dimensions. The work is central to the Discovery Group's Shared-Value Insurance model. He is a Fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries in London, the Society of Actuaries in the US and a Member of the American Academy of Actuaries. Click here to learn more about smoking risks from the perspective of insurers: https://www.oliverwyman.com/content/dam/oliver-wyman/v2/publications/2019/November/insurer-perspectives-on-smoking-risks.pdf

George is a Mechanical Engineer at Cambridge Design Partnership and has experience across a wide range of projects, from consumer goods through to medical and performance-critical drug delivery devices. He takes a user-centric approach to his research and design and was a named Red Dot Design Award winner for CDP's First Response Monitor, a wearable connected medical device for the monitoring of patient vital signs. He has a passion for sustainable design and is a strong advocate of taking a systems-approach all design challenges, but especially sustainability-based problems. He holds a master's degree in aeronautical engineering from Imperial College London and has previously worked at Rolls-Royce as a systems design and integration engineer

In this episode, Derek Yach addresses the significance of World No Tobacco Day and how the day affected him personally while living in South Africa many years ago. On World No Tobacco Day we are reminded that smoking remains the largest single preventable cause of death.

Dr. Jed Rose is the President and CEO of the Rose Research Center. He is also Director of the Duke Center for Smoking Cessation and a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Duke University Medical Center. Dr. Jed Rose began work in the area of tobacco addiction research as a NIMH Postdoctoral fellow at the University of California at Los Angeles. A main focus of his research program has been the elucidation of the role of sensorimotor cues and the CNS effects of nicotine in reinforcing cigarette smoking behavior. He is co-inventor of the nicotine skin patch and other treatments for smoking cessation. His primary research goals are to elucidate the biological mechanisms underlying tobacco addiction and to promote the development of more effective treatments.

Dyborn Chibonga is the regional head for Malawi and Mozambique at the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), an alliance aimed to catalyze and sustain inclusive agriculture transformation for smallholder farmers in Africa. He has more than 25 years of experience advocating for product diversification away from tobacco into other cash and food crops, as well as policy and regulatory reforms that promote food security and rural development. Mr. Chibonga previously served as the CEO of the National Smallholder Farmers' Association of Malawi (NASFAM) for 18 years. During this time, Mr. Chibonga grew the organization to more than 165,000 farmers, making it the largest smallholder-owned membership organization in Malawi. He transformed NASFAM from a small association into a sustainable business and a model for other countries to follow. Under Mr. Chibonga's leadership, NASFAM established the Agricultural Commodity Exchange for Africa, a platform designed to encourage competitive bidding processes for smallholder farmers when selling their crops. Mr. Chibonga is from Malawi and provides strategic guidance as a member of the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World's board of directors. Mr. Chibonga is also a board member of the Cooperative Insurance Company of Malawi, the Jubilee University Council and the Commercial Agriculture Support Services. He holds a BS degree from the Bunda College of Agriculture at the University of Malawi and an MSc in landscape ecology design & maintenance from the University of London, where he also holds a master's certificate in NGO management.

Melonie Kastman has worked for 20+ years in film, producing television commercials for major brands and networks, partnered with dozens of the top ad agencies and production companies to film around the globe (list available upon request) Moving into the documentary world, most notably directed "Road to Change" inside the life of an African President, filming with then President of Sierra Leone H.E. Ernest Bai Koroma as he worked to rebuild his country after a violent civil war. Other clients include African Leadership Academy, The American Cancer Society, Doctors Without Borders, Ronald McDonald House Charities, UN Department of Peacekeeping, Crow Collection of Asian Arts, The Greenbelt Movement: filmed with Nobel Peace Prize recipient Wanguri Maathi, Foundation for a SmokeFreeWorld, The Carlyle Group, World Food Program, USAID, Themiis Institute, and the Conrad Foundation at NASA . Most currently Melonie followed the UN Ebola Emergency Response team in Democratic Republic of Congo as they coordinated efforts to curb the 2nd largest Ebola epidemic, located in an area of high insecurity, conflict and facing rebel attacks o health care workers ad facilities. Ongoing Projects: For the launch of The Foundation for SmokeFreeWorld, an NGO focused on ending smoking in a generation. Melonie filmed a short documentary "The True Cost of a Cigarette" which depicts the unintended consequences of decline in demand for small shareholder tobacco farmers in developing nations. We continue to film and follow their important story across the globe. First feature length documentary (currently in post production) "...until there is peace" follows a special group of Peacekeepers known as the Force Intervention Brigade as they go about their work, not only protecting civilians but also working to eliminate the rebel forces, in the largest and most dangerous UN Peacekeeping mission in the world, MONUSCO in The Democratic Republic of Congo.

Gerry Stimson is a British public health social scientist, emeritus professor at Imperial College London from 2004, and a former honorary professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine from 2017. Stimson has over 220 scientific publications mainly on social and health aspects of illicit drug use, including HIV infection. He has sat on numerous editorial boards including AIDS, Addiction, and European Addiction Research, and with Tim Rhodes he was the co-editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Drug Policy from 2000 to 2016. He is one of the global leaders for research on and later advocacy for harm reduction. From 2010 he has focused on tobacco harm reduction. Since 2010 Stimson has focused on how harm reduction can be applied to reduce the toll of death, disease and disability caused by tobacco use. He is now co-director of the Global State of Tobacco Harm Reduction (GSTHR), a project supported by the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World. The GSTHR maps the availability, use and regulation of safer nicotine products and the public health potential of tobacco harm reduction worldwide. The GSTHR publishes a biennial report (new edition forthcoming November 2020) and a website which offers users tools to research and compare country-level data on safer nicotine products. In early 2020, the GSTHR team published 'Tobacco harm reduction and the right to health', an introductory briefing paper to support tobacco harm reduction advocacy. https://gsthr.org/ https://gsthr.org/report/full-report https://gsthr.org/report/2020-briefing-paper

Tikki joined the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy after 13 years at the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, Switzerland as Director of its Research Policy & Cooperation department. In this capacity, he worked with countries to strengthen their national health research systems, developed mechanisms and initiatives to improve the efficiency and transparency of global health research, and helped formulate an Organization-wide research policy. After following a traditional academic career path in Malaysia, his experience at the WHO convinced him that the generation of knowledge must be accompanied by its translation and utilization, and the bridging of the ‘know-do' gap into effective and sustainable public policies in order to improve the health of humankind, especially in the developing world. In turn, and in order to ensure its effective implementation, effective public policies must exist in a climate of good global governance as health in a globalized world is increasingly becoming a trans-national issue which knows no borders. Tikki's main research and academic interests are in infectious diseases, the impact of genomics on public health, global health governance, national health research systems, knowledge translation, research transparency & accountability, and the use of evidence in health policy development. In these areas he has published more than 200 scientific articles and 12 books, edited volumes and reports. This includes several major WHO reports, includingGenomics and World Health (2002), the World Report on Knowledge for Better Health (2004) and a History of Research in WHO (2010). His involvement with the LKY School of Public Policy began in 2009 through the ST Lee Project on Global Health Governance. Tikki holds a BSC (Honours) and PhD degrees from the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia in the fields of biochemistry and microbiology/immunology. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists (UK), American Academy of Microbiology (USA), Institute of Biology (UK) and the Academy of Medicine of Malaysia. He was the Founding Editor of Health Research Policy & Systems and the Asia-Pacific Journal of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology.

Dr Glover is a Māori (New Zealand indigenous) behavioral scientist with over 27 years of experience in tobacco control and over 100 scientific papers. She is the Director of the internationally-focused Centre of Research Excellence on Indigenous Sovereignty & Smoking. Much of her work as a Professor of Public Health has concentrated on designing pragmatic solutions to reduce smoking, particularly smoking while pregnant. She is well known for her compassionate insight and advocacy on tobacco harm reduction, which resulted in her being appointed as Tobacco Section Editor for the international Harm Reduction Journal. In 2017, Marewa was a Finalist in the Women of Influence Awards and in 2019, in recognition of her contribution to society she was named one of three finalists in the New Zealander of The Year Awards.

Angela has served as a trusted advisor to members of the U.S. Congress and Executive Branch as well as to CEOs and senior executives in complex, multi-national organizations for over two decades. Angela is currently a member of the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World's Board of Directors. Previously, Angela was Vice President, International Corporate Affairs, at Walmart Stores, Inc. where she led the company's external engagement in 40+ retail, ecommerce and sourcing countries around the world. She also launched innovative public-private chain capacity building projects focused on transparency, building safety, agricultural development and women's economic empowerment in Latin America, Asia and Africa. Angela joined the company in 2002 as Director of International Corporate Affairs in the company's Federal Government Relations office in Washington, D.C. In 2005, she moved to company headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas where she led corporate affairs engagement in the Americas as well as gained operational experience in the supply chain when she was promoted to Vice President, GNFR (indirect spend) and Sourcing Services in Walmart Global Sourcing.

Coming from a family of 3 generations of doctors, Pooja has always been passionate about providing holistic care to patients. Graduating with a first-class from one of India's top medical schools, she has worked in medical research in Singapore and is now a front line doctor in an inner-city practice, working with marginalized and underprivileged communities in the UK. She is a strong believer in preventive medicine and working with people to help them make healthier life choices. Along with working as a GP, she is also a clinical director and co-founder of the Centre for Health Research and Education (CHRE), working globally on tobacco cessation with a mantra of ‘Bridging the Policy and Practice gap'. Until now she has upskilled and empowered 100s of influencers in UK as well as in India, as part of the mission of creating local champions, to support tobacco users in their quitting journey. People with mental health conditions have significantly high smoking rates and die nearly 10-20 earlier than those without mental health conditions. Pooja has been making a positive impact in the challenging area of helping people with mental health conditions quit smoking. During the COVID pandemic, Pooja has been warning Public Health to pre-empt a surge in tobacco use and work proactively to prevent another healthcare calamity hitting the world. She herself has been at the forefront of creating and disseminating “Quit During Covid” message using innovative ways, during the lockdown period. https://bjgpopen.org/content/early/2020/04/07/bjgpopen20X101067

Ethan has played a leading role in harm reduction and other drug policy reform efforts in the United States and globally since the late 1980s. He was born in New York City, received his BA, JD, and PhD from Harvard, and taught politics and public affairs at Princeton University (1987-1994). He then founded first The Lindesmith Center (1994-2000, a drug policy institute created with the philanthropic support of George Soros) and then the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA), which he directed from 2000 until 2017. His TED Talk, “Why we need to end the drug war,” has two million views.

Listed among the 100 Most Influential in UK - India Relationships, Darshita is Founder & CEO of Maanch and currently a member of the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World's Board of Directors. Her aim is to leverage the power of emerging technologies to address the complex business and societal challenges we face in a more sustainable, conscious, and strategic way. Her experience builds on and blends 3 facets, 'Finance', 'Technology' and 'Planetary Sustainability'. With a professional background as Chartered Accountant, Investment Banker, Executive Coach, Impact Investing and FinTech/ Blockchain Specialist, Darshita also serves on Boards of 'For Profit' and 'Non-Profit' organisations.

Chitra Subramaniam is an iconic investigative journalist from India now living in Geneva. She is recognized for her investigation of the Bofors-India Howitzer deal which is widely believed to have to have contributed to the electoral defeat of Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1989. This ten-year three-country investigation helped change jurisprudence in Switzerland in matters of international assistance in criminal cases. Subramaniam went on to work for the WHO after which she founded CSDconsulting a company at the crossroads of development, trade and media. She has worked with some of the world's top groups including India's TATA group and Sweden's Wallenberg group.

Alumni of Carnegie Mellon, Nilesh Jain is a serial entrepreneur and an advisor for emerging entrepreneurs and start-ups. Nilesh is the founder and managing director of Harm Reduction Research and Innovation Center (HRRIC). He is also a co-founder of Quitx, an application that helps smokers quit smoking and Clinivantage Healthcare, a social enterprise for improving access to care at lower costs. He is focussed in the area of healthcare and tobacco harm reduction, and establish HRRIC to build research capacity in India.

As a Data Analyst, Yuchen Xue conducts research on the evolving tobacco landscape, focusing on industry changes in China. She also performs quantitative and qualitative analyses of relevant datasets, including surveys, government data, company reports, and publicly-available research. Click here for the full bio

Dr. Shlomi Madar, VP of Healthcare Solutions at Signals Analytics, is a seasoned healthcare executive with 15 years of experience and a strong scientific background. He works closely with leading Healthcare and Pharmaceuticals companies to help them become data-driven organizations, embrace innovation, and drive success via evidence and analytics.

In the second episode of the “Global Health Perspectives with Derek Yach” podcast, Dr. Yach speaks with Candida Nakhumwa, PhD, the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World Country Director in Malawi. Candida speaks about her personal journey, the Foundation's work in #Malawi and the potential ramifications of the #COVID19 pandemic on smallholder #tobacco farmers. Shortly after recording this episode, President Peter Mutharika announced that Malawi has 3 confirmed cases of COVID-19.

The Foundation for a Smoke-Free World has premiered its inaugural episode of the Global Health Perspectives with Derek Yach podcast. Dr. Riccardo Polosa, a respiratory physician and harm reduction expert, is the first guest and he speaks about his first-hand experience with the #COVID19 pandemic in Italy. Listen here.