The WHO has today announced its 2025 “World No Tobacco Day Awards” winners. We wondered how many were responsible for misinformation and bad policy on safer products. Turns out, quite a few. Given that the Director General of the WHO himself is complicit in spreading known falsehoods about safer nicotine products, this should surprise no-one.
Dr Mohamed Muizzu, President of the Maldives
If you want the special “WHO Director General Special Awards” and you’re the President of a small country, the simplest way to do it seems to be to completely ban vaping and criminalise possession.
That’s what the President of the tourist-hotspot Maldives did back in 2024, as covered on Clearing the Air.
Being caught vaping in the Maldives carries a fine of MVR 5,000 (€308). Importers will be fined MVR 50,000 (€3,000), with an additional MVR 10,000 (€617) penalty for each device. Sellers will be fined MVR 20,000 (€1,235), plus MVR 10,000 (€617) for each device sold or distributed, and selling vapes to minors carries a heavier penalty of MVR 50,000 (€3,000).
Homeland Security Minister Ali Ihusan confirmed the vape ban will also apply to tourists to the island. “..if anyone enters the Maldives and attempts to bring vape devices, we will intercept them at the border,”
Adult smoking prevalence in the Maldives is 27.3%. Cigarettes remain freely available.
Frank Vandenbroucke, Deputy Prime Minister and Health Minister, Belgium
European vapers and pouch users thought they had dodged a bullet when Vandenbroucke missed out on the job of EU Health Commissioner (though it later transpired that the Hungarian who got the job, Oliver Varhelyi, thinks vaping is just as bad as smoking).
Vandenbroucke was responsible for Belgium’s stupid and pointless attempt to ban nicotine pouches. We say attempt because, as we covered on Clearing the Air, pouches remain freely available in the country. Just ask any Swede working in the EU institutions, and you’ll be told where to go to get them.
Vandenbroucke was also responsible for such a cack-handed attempt to ban disposable vapes that most retailers are ignoring it and the black market is rampant.
Despite having such a “global leader” in tobacco control in its government, Belgium is awful at collecting smoking prevalence statistics. The last data we have is seven years old and shows that 19% of Belgians smoke. Cigarettes remain freely available.
Professor Emily Banks, Australian National University
Banks has been one of the leading Australian prohibitionists, whose work has led to successive vaping bans across the country; and she’s been very keen to avoid talking about actual health outcomes in order to get there.
At a Senate hearing on the latest attempt by Australia to ban vaping, Banks repeatedly tried to avoid answering questions on whether there had been any recorded deaths from vaping, as covered by Clearing the Air. Over half of smokers die due to their use of cigarettes.
She was eventually forced to admit that the actual number was zero. However, she persisted in arguing that vaping presents new health risks when compared to smoking (they do not).
Smoking rates in Australia have stagnated in recent years, while they have fallen sharply in Zew Zealand, where vaping is recognised as a great way to quit smoking. Cigarettes remain freely available.
Dr Seyed Morteza Khatami, Ministry of Health and Medical Education, Iran
We can’t find anything out about this guy, and we don’t know if he’s related to former Iranian President Mohammed Khatami.
What we would say is that it’s not a good look for an International organisation to be giving an “attaboy” to members of a despotic theocratic regime whose police force beats women to death for failing to cover their heads in public; and whose government is supporting Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and is under sanctions in most of the democratic world.
It’s not the first time the WHO’s tobacco control lackeys have given a pat on the head to brutal autocratic regimes. The Russian government got one in 2021 while it was illegally occupying parts of Ukraine and had poisoned opposition activist Alexey Navalny. And the Venezuelan government got one in 2020, the year after it effectively annulled democratic elections and brutally suppressed its people.
Male smoking rates in Iran are around 25%.
