WHO Chief Chan: Smoke ’em if you got ’em.

World Health Organization Director-General Margaret Chan, who on Monday took a much needed break from all her hard work battling the Ebola crises to attend a convention in Russia on tobacco control, has admitted to Bud Fox News that, “The stress of managing our response to the Ebola crisis has been so great that I started smoking.  When I’m feeling overwhelmed, I find that a cigarette really calms me down.”  Asked whether she was worried about setting a bad example, she responded:  “I’m an adult, and the decision to smoke is completely my own.  And anyway, as the head of an agency within the United Nations, the rules don’t apply to me.  Things like smoking bans only apply to the little people because we know what’s best for them.”

Chan defended her decision to attend the conference by saying:

“Some people ask me: ‘You are so busy with Ebola. Why are you coming to the Russian Federation?’ I say, ‘For two reasons: As WHO director-general, I cannot focus only on one issue. Ebola is important, but there are other important issues, like tobacco control. And this is why I’m coming to the meeting hosted by the Russian Federation.’”

When asked about Chan’s remarks, Dr. James Longstreet, professor at the Medical College at the University of the Confederacy, said, “Hmmm, there really aren’t two reasons in her answer; there’s only one.  Can this woman count?”

Considering Chan was with them in Russia while the Ebola crisis continued to unravel 6,000 miles away in Africa, attendees wondered whether their ears were playing tricks on them when Chan said of the Ebola problem:

“I have never seen a health event threaten the very survival of societies and governments in already very poor countries…”

When Bud Fox News asked Chan which she thought would be harder for the average person to believe- 1) that the WHO Director-General smokes or 2) that she would actually travel to a tobacco control meeting when the world is worried about a potential Ebola pandemic in an entirely different part of the world, she struggled to articulate an answer and finally said, “You’ll have to excuse me, I’m dying for a cigarette.”