? ? The 5th """"""""World Assembly on Tobacco Counters Health"""""""" conference and its major components """"""""Indo- US Symposium on Tobacco-Related Diseases"""""""" and """"""""FAMRI Symposium on Secondhand Smoke"""""""" will be held in New Delhi, India during 2-5 December, 2007. The main goal of the conference is to develop collaborative platforms between the US and Indian basic, clinical and translational scientists involved in tobacco-related disease research. Tobacco use exacts tremendous health and economic burden by causing cancer, cardiovascular disease, lung disease, chronic inflammation, adverse reproductive health effects and birth defects. Of the 2.5 billion tobacco users globally, about 240 million (195 million male users and 45 million female users, aged 15 years and above) live in India and 65 million in the USA. Tobacco use causes annually more than 39 million cases of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), 4.5 million cases of coronary artery disease, 165,000 cases of cancer and 800,000-900,000 deaths in India. Major tobacco-related diseases in India cost the country more than $7 billion (US) in 2001-2002 and $8 billion (US) in 2004-2005. Tobacco-caused heart disease, stroke, COPD and cancer are also recognized as a public health priority in the USA. Importantly, nonsmokers and children exposed to secondhand smoke (SHS) are also at great risk to develop tobacco-related diseases. During the last 15 years, biomedical research on tobacco-caused diseases funded by the NIH, American Heart Association, American Cancer Society, American Lung Association and state funding agencies in California, Colorado, Florida and Minnesota, has led to increased public awareness about health risks of tobacco use, enactment and enforcement of antismoking policies in public places, nicotine-replacement therapies, and improved diagnoses and treatment as well as prevention of tobacco-related diseases in the US population. Variation in the development and severity of tobacco-related diseases among diverse populations of India and USA (including 2.5 million people of Indian origin), due to tobacco use and SHS exposure, are poorly understood, and are of great interest and importance to scientists, clinicians, biotechnology companies and pharmaceutical enterprise in both countries. ? ? ? ?
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