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• A positive spin-off from the Aids crisis 

It may be a dim silver lining to a particularly dark cloud, but one apparent result of the Aids pandemic in Swaziland is that fewer people in the country are smoking.

"When people learn they are HIV-positive, they are counselled to live a healthy lifestyle to prolong their lives. The shock that they may die prematurely of Aids is just the type of trauma that gets people to stop smoking," says John Kunene, principal secretary at the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare.

Although the Council on Smoking, Alcohol and Drugs (Cosad) has no statistics on the reported decline in smoking, it says there is plenty of anecdotal evidence to buttress the claim. . . .

Even the newsrooms of Swaziland's two daily papers have changed their ways: traditionally havens for prolific cigarette smokers, the offices no longer feature journalists working in a haze of smoke. . . .

"Aids is no longer an immediate death sentence if they follow a healthy lifestyle. What they must do is some moderate exercise, take vitamins, lower or cut out alcohol consumption -- and no smoking," he adds.

"I used to smoke, but I lost a taste for it when I got sick," says an HIV-positive contractor from Matsapha, an industrial centre near Manzini.

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• Snuff Use During Pregnancy Puts Baby, Mom, at Risk 

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters Health) - Women who use smokeless tobacco rather than smoking cigarettes during pregnancy may still put themselves and their babies in jeopardy, government researchers reported Friday at the annual meeting of the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine here.

"We need to do more research about whether smokeless tobacco is a safe substitute for smoking, it may not be that simple," said study co-author Dr. Mark Klebanoff, director of the division of Epidemiology, Statistics and Prevention Research at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in Bethesda, Maryland.

The researchers hoped to evaluate the effect of snuff, or smokeless tobacco, on the health of the developing fetus. Lead author Dr. Lucinda England of the NIH and colleagues examined data from the Swedish Medical Birth Register for women who delivered babies during 1999-2000.

The researchers compared the 789 snuff users to the 11,242 cigarette smokers and 11,500 women who refrained from using any tobacco, looking at rates of preterm delivery, the pregnancy complication preeclampsia and restriction of fetal growth.

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