Today osteoporosis affects more than 75 million people in the United States, Europe and Japan and causes more than 2.3 million fractures in the USA and Europe alone.

Although approximately 80% of osteoporosis sufferers are women, as the longevity of the male population increases, the disease will assume increasing importance in men.

This is a historic moment in global public health, demonstrating the international will to tackle a threat to health head on.

Cancers of all types among women are increasing.

Investing in health will produce enormous benefits.

More than ever before, there is a global understanding that long-term social, economic, and environmental development would be impossible without healthy families, communities, and countries.

When public and private sectors combine intellectual and other resources, more can be achieved.

Let me first say that I don’t think the millennium target of cutting global poverty in half is an impossible or abstract target. I think it is a real and achievable goal.

Today osteoporosis affects more than 75 million people in the United States, Europe and Japan and causes more than 2.3 million fractures in the USA and Europe alone.

Intervention for the prevention and control of osteoporosis should comprise a combination of legislative action, educational measures, health service activities, media coverage, and individual counselling to initiate changes in behaviour.

Morality becomes hypocrisy if it means accepting mothers’ suffering or dying in connection with unwanted pregnancies and illegal abortions and unwanted children.

An important lever for sustained action in tackling poverty and reducing hunger is money.

Such lifestyle factors such as cigarette smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, little physical activity and low dietary calcium intake are risk factors for osteoporosis as well as for many other non-communicable diseases.

During my nearly five years as director-general of WHO, high-level policymakers have increasingly recognized that health is central to sustainable development.

With an annual investment of $66 billion by 2007, we can save 8 million lives each year.

In recognising the global problem posed by osteoporosis, WHO sees the need for a global strategy for prevention and control of osteoporosis, focusing on three major functions: prevention, management and surveillance.

Contaminated food is a major cause of diarrhea, substantially contributing to malnutrition and killing about 2.2 million people each year, most of them children.

Health is the core of human development.

We are also in the process of defining how best to work together with food and other companies to address diet and physical activity factors in order to prevent chronic diseases.

You cannot achieve environmental security and human development without addressing the basic issues of health and nutrition.

The launch of the report coincides with the initiation by WHO of the global strategy for the prevention and control of osteoporosis, and I think a good partnership could be established in our common efforts to prevent osteoporosis.

I have seen this happen in recent years with regard to pharmaceuticals and vaccines, where, working together, we are improving access to medicines and vaccines for infectious diseases in the poorest countries.

The development of the food industry for both domestic and export markets relies on a regulatory framework that both protects the consumer and assures fair trading practices in food.

We have seen SARS stopped dead in its tracks.

Since the reduction of risk factors is the scientific basis for primary prevention, the World Health Organization promotes the development of an integrated strategy for prevention of several diseases, rather than focusing on individual ones.

The burden of disease falls on the poor.

This syndrome, SARS, is now a worldwide health threat… The world needs to work together to find its cause, cure the sick and stop its spread.

The dual scourge of hunger and malnutrition will be truly vanquished not only when granaries are full, but also when people’s basic health needs are met and women are given their rightful role in societies.

Women’s health is one of WHO’s highest priorities.

A safe and nutritionally adequate diet is a basic individual right and an essential condition for sustainable development, especially in developing countries.

This double burden of disease is rapidly putting a serious brake on the development efforts of many countries.

Osteoporosis, as the third threat, is particularly attributable to women’s physiology.

That the AIDS pandemic is threatening sustainable development in Africa only reinforces the reality that health is at the center of sustainable development.

Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death in women.