![\"From](\"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/dr.vargheseintv-copy.jpg\")
<\/a>\u201cNCD such as diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and lung diseases are a major problem for all Pacific islanders and CNMI is facing the brunt of these diseases. The government has a responsibility to help people live healthy and that is what translating this into a policy is. Sometimes it is viewed as an interference in the person\u2019s choice, but it is not, you\u2019re not interfering in the choice. If a person wants to live healthy, there should be an option for that,\u201d said Dr. Varghese, who is also a team leader of WHO\u2019s Western Pacific Region, Division of Pacific Technical Support, Pacific NCD & Health Through Life-Course.<\/p>\n
At the forefront of this fight should be the government, particularly the Legislature, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut nowadays it is not like that for most of the options around us. That is where legislation is needed. An example is tobacco control. We cannot say that \u2018smoking is my right and we want to smoke in the aircraft.\u2019 Nobody does that. So it is not containing the person\u2019s freedom, it is making everybody else\u2019s health safe. So I think policies and regulations are very important,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Dr. Varghese has been on island since Monday and attended a presentation with the 19th Legislature, which he said was a good discussion on addressing public health. Among the discussions included taxation for healthier foods.<\/p>\n
From Tuesday to yesterday workshops were held with Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. Division of Public Health and other health providers mainly to look at where the CNMI is now in terms of addressing NCDs.<\/p>\n
Dr. Daniel Lamar, CHCC\u2019s Medical Director for Public Health, echoed Dr. Varghese\u2019s words, saying that health advocates as a group have all agreed that NCDs is such an important issue to address for the well-being of the community that they want to bring it to the attention of every single person, agency, department, business, organizations, and etc.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe solicit their support because it will take a \u2018whole society approach\u2019,\u201d Dr. Lamar said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt takes our legislators to create the right policies, to help create the environment, to set the stage to make it convenient for them to live lifestyles in promoting health because that is going to most likely change or impact the NCD epidemic, this tsunami that we\u2019re in the midst of,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
NCD Alliance chair Dr. Don Hardt said that if NCD problems are allowed to hold sway, problems continue, and people will destroy the society, its economy, and eventually its freedom because no one will be here anymore.<\/p>\n
Dr. Varghese said that WHO has been very successful in advocating tobacco taxes and one of the main reasons for tobacco consumption going down is due to its high price in the market.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo taxation as a whole\u2026is really effective. When it comes to food, it is not as clear as tobacco but there are various countries looking at taxing unhealthy products and sugar-sweetened beverages and we know it is one of the major contributors for childhood obesity,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is an option to try and tax them in a graded fashion, but a tax on food should always be supported by either a subsidy or a removal of tax on something else so that people have better options rather than just raising tax on one product,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
One example is if water is less expensive than sugary soda, people will drink water, but if water is more expensive than sugary sodas, people will drink soda.<\/p>\n
One suggestion from Dr. Varghese is to look at importation where agencies can get involved in trying to get healthier products to come in.<\/p>\n
Another suggestion is subsidizing a different product such as fruits and vegetables that are healthier when raising the tax on unhealthy products.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that the Legislature can make it happen, because it is not just the responsibility of CHCC or DPH. Whether it is transportation, departments, or in the community, public health will be addressed. So my message to the Legislature is to look at that, how every department can contribute to making the CNMI a healthier CNMI because it cannot just be done by the hospital,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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