Investing in health will produce enormous benefits.
Health is the core of human development.
You cannot achieve environmental security and human development without addressing the basic issues of health and nutrition.
When public and private sectors combine intellectual and other resources, more can be achieved.
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.
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.
Although approximately 80% of osteoporosis sufferers are women, as the longevity of the male population increases, the disease will assume increasing importance in men.
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.
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.
That the AIDS pandemic is threatening sustainable development in Africa only reinforces the reality that health is at the center of sustainable development.
Osteoporosis, as the third threat, is particularly attributable to women's physiology.
A safe and nutritionally adequate diet is a basic individual right and an essential condition for sustainable development, especially in developing countries.
Morality becomes hypocrisy if it means accepting mothers' suffering or dying in connection with unwanted pregnancies and illegal abortions and unwanted children.
During my nearly five years as director-general of WHO, high-level policymakers have increasingly recognized that health is central to sustainable development.
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.
An important lever for sustained action in tackling poverty and reducing hunger is money.
Cancers of all types among women are increasing.
Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death in women.
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.
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.
