On November 25, 2003, the European Lung White Book was presented officially to members of the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium. This project was initiated 5 yrs ago when the Executive Committee of the European Respiratory Society (ERS) decided to inform the European Community and European Union (EU) decision-makers about the increasing burden of lung disease and the importance of lung health. The European Lung White Book then became part of a global public health awareness campaign supported by the European Lung Foundation: the “Breath of Life” campaign. The main objectives of this White Book, which is the first document to include epidemiological data collected from all European countries on the full spectrum of respiratory disorders are as follows:
1) To raise public awareness of the importance of lung diseases and measures necessary to counter their increase. Major respiratory disorders, pneumonia (third), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD; fifth), tuberculosis (TB; sixth) and lung cancer (ninth) currently rank among the 10 …