Tobacco.org

• DOH plans quit smoking program 

Two thousand hospitals and clinics are expected to join in a nationwide campaign to help people quit smoking that will be launched on March 1, the Department of Health (DOH) said yesterday.

About 180,000 people are expected to take advantage of the program, which will translate into 45,000 smokers quitting the habit, given an expected success rate of 25 percent, Bureau of Health Promotion Director-General Chiou Shu-ti (邱淑媞) said.

Success is counted if someone remains smoke-free six months after the end of the program.

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• Household secondhand smoke exposure of elementary schoolchildren in Southern Taiwan and factors associated with their confidence in avoiding exposure: a cross-sectional study 

Methods

In this cross-sectional school-based study, data on household SHS exposure, avoidance of SHS and related variables was obtained from the 2008 and 2009 Control of School-aged Children Smoking Study Survey. A random sample of 52 elementary schools was included. A total of 4450 3-6 graders (aged 8-13) completed the questionnaire. Regression models analyzed factors of children's self-confidence to avoid household SHS exposure.

Results

Over 50% of children were found to have lived with a family member who smoked in front of them after the new law enacted, and 35% of them were exposed to household SHS more than 4 days a week. . . .

Conclusions

The intervention program should enhance school children do actively avoid exposure to SHS in home settings, and more importantly, provide tobacco hazard knowledge to male students to avoid exposure to household SHS for themselves. The results also provide further evidence that Tobacco Hazards Prevention Act should perhaps be extended to the family environment in order to protect children from the hazards of household SHS exposure.

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• Household secondhand smoke exposure of elementary schoolchildren in Southern Taiwan and factors associated with their confidence in avoiding exposure: a cross-sectional study 

Results: Over 50% of children were found to have lived with a family member who smoked in front of them after the new law enacted, and 35% of them were exposed to household SHS more than 4 days a week. Having a positive attitude toward smoking (beta = -0.05 to -0.06) and high household SHS exposure (beta = -0.34 to -0.47) were significantly associated with a lower avoidance of SHS exposure.

Comparing to girls, boys had lower scores in their knowledge of tobacco hazards; and this factor was significantly related to their SHS avoidance (beta = 0.13 to 0.14).

Conclusions: The intervention program should enhance school children do actively avoid exposure to SHS in home settings, and more importantly, provide tobacco hazard knowledge to male students to avoid exposure to household SHS for themselves. The results also provide further evidence that Tobacco Hazards Prevention Act should perhaps be extended to the family environment in order to protect children from the hazards of household SHS exposure.

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• Anti-tobacco legislation results in less smokers  

Three years after the “Tobacco Hazards Prevention Act,” passed into law, the anti-tobacco effort has resulted in less smokers, although the number of female smokers has increased, and chronic smokers smoke more, according to the data released by the Department of Health.

In 2011, on average Taiwanese smokers smoke 18.9 cigarettes per day, more than the 18.1 cigarettes per day recorded in 2010 and an increase over the statistics recorded prior to the Tobacco Hazards Prevention Act.

A Bureau of Health Promotion official Feng Jung-yi(馮宗蟻) said, since the act was passed three years ago, it has been successfully enforced in all public and working places, anywhere that has over three people.

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• Survey shows more Taiwanese smoke outside capital city  

There is a gap between the number of smokers who live in Taipei and those who live in other parts of the country, indicating the uneven health conditions among different areas of Taiwan, a public health survey shows.

If the smoking rate outside Taipei could be reduced to the same percentage as in Taipei, smoking-related deaths, such as lung cancer, oral cavity cancer and other diseases, could be reduced, the Taiwan Association for Promoting Public Health said press conference to announce its report yesterday.

Chen Mei-hsia (陳美霞), chairperson of the association, said the smoking rate of people over the age of 18 in Taipei reached an all-time low of 13.4 percent last year.

While the rates in other areas have also fallen, there is still a gap between Taipei and the areas with the highest rates — New Taipei City (新北市), with 23.7 percent, Hualien County at 23.4 percent, Taoyuan County’s 22.8 percent, Keelung’s 22.7 percent and 20.1 percent in Taitung County, she said.

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Group demands changes to tobacco laws  

A group of smokers staged a protest in front of the venue of a public health forum in Taipei yesterday, demanding an amendment to the Tobacco Hazard Prevention Act (菸害防制法) to protect the rights of cigarette smokers.

The act, which took effect in 2009, has limited the range of places where people can smoke and has greatly affected the rights of smokers, the organization that initiated the demonstration said.

The Taiwan Nicotiana Association for Human Rights, the first of its kind in Taiwan, seeks to protect the rights of smokers.

It said the law not only bans smoking in designated public areas and indoor venues where there are three or more persons, but also in locations that local authorities may deem inappropriate.

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• Taipei to recruit anti-smoking volunteers  

The Taipei city government launched a campaign Monday to recruit anti-smoking volunteers in cooperation with the John Tung Foundation (JTF).

The drive is part of the city's efforts to promote a healthy image and move toward a smoke-free environment, the city's health department said.

According to a telephone survey of adult smoking behavior conducted by the Bureau of Health Promotion, the average rate of smoking among adults around the country was 19.77 percent in 2010, with Taipei recording the lowest rate, at 13.37 percent.

To protect the public and foreign visitors from the harm caused by second-hand smoke, Lin Ching-li, chief of the foundation's tobacco control division, urged people under the age of 65 to join the campaign, in which they will receive professional training in how to discourage smoking at tourist attractions and other public places.

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A randomized experiment to examine unintended consequences of dietary supplement use among daily smokers: taking supplements reduces self-regulation of smoking 

Design A single-factor (credentials: with or without) between-subjects design was employed. Smokers were assigned randomly to take either a known placebo pill or a dietary supplement (in fact, the same placebo) in an ostensible health-food test.

Setting Laboratory at Kaohsiung Medical University, Taiwan.

Participants Study 1 involved of a student sample consisting of 74 daily smokers, whereas study 2 involved a community sample consisting of 80 daily smokers.

Measurements In Study 1, participants reported their perceived invulnerability following the manipulation. In study 2, pre- and post-test measures of invulnerability were administered, and attitudes towards dietary supplements were assessed prior to the manipulation. In both studies, the dependent measure was the number of cigarettes smoked during completion of an unrelated survey.

Findings Participants who believed that they were taking a dietary supplement smoked more cigarettes than did controls. Study 1 found support for the role of perceived invulnerability as a mechanism underlying this effect. Study 2 demonstrated the moderating effect played by attitudes towards dietary supplements: a more positive attitude towards supplements increased susceptibility to licensing effects.

Conclusions Dietary supplement use may create illusory invulnerability, reducing the self-regulation of smoking. Reminding health-conscious smokers that multi-vitamins do not prevent cancer may help such smokers to control their smoking and encourage them to stop.

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• Motivation To Reduce Smoking May Be Weakened By Taking Vitamin Pills 

A recent study revealed that smokers who take multivitamins actually make up for their healthy habit by smoking more. Psychologists call this the licensing effect, which happens when someone makes a good choice which later enables them to make a bad choice such as, when a person feels 'entitled' to a weekend binge drinking by avoiding alcohol all week. In this case, smokers believe that by taking multivitamins it will reduce the risk of cancer and permit them to smoke more. No evidence indicates that multivitamins protect against cancer.

Published online today in the journal Addiction, the study describes two experiments conducted by the authors. . . .

Smokers who are health-conscious and take multivitamins may activate important but false beliefs that they are immune to major health hazards associated with smoking, leading them to smoke more and increase their overall health risk.

Wen-Bin Chiou lead author said:

"Smokers who take dietary supplements can fool themselves into thinking they are protected against cancer and other diseases. Reminding health conscious smokers that multivitamins don't prevent cancer may help them control their smoking or even encourage them to stop."

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Secondhand smoke remains problem in Taiwan schools 

Secondhand smoke remains a threat in Taiwan schools even though it is banned at the secondary level and below, according to the results of a survey released Thursday by the Bureau of Health Promotion.

The Global Youth Tobacco Survey carried out in 2009 and 2010 found that 19.7 percent of students in junior high schools and 26.9 percent of those in senior high schools were exposed to secondhand smoke in the week before the survey was conducted.

In junior high schools, 52.7 percent of the exposures were attributed to schoolmates, 29.7 percent to visitors and 7 percent to school staff. . . .

Noticeably, principals and teachers accounted for 10.7 percent and 11 percent of the exposures among junior high and senior high students, respectively, which shows that school management has still much room for improvement when it comes to implementing the smoking ban, the bureau said.

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Lawmakers, demonstrators divided on smoking ban  

Supporters and opponents of a stricter smoking ban rallied at the legislature in Taipei yesterday as Department of Health officials briefed lawmakers about proposed amendments to the Tobacco Hazards Prevention Act (菸害防制法).

“Taiwan is a democracy and the rights [of everyone] should be protected,” Tobacco Human Rights Association of Taiwan -secretary-general Chen Shao-ting (陳紹庭) said at a demonstration. “We try to copy other countries that have strict smoking bans, but somehow we are not creating smoking areas for smokers like many countries that ban smoking in public places do.”

He also accused lawmakers of launching the legislative process without holding public hearings first.

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Groups unveil proposed amendments to tobacco act  

Civic groups on Sunday made public their proposed amendments to the Tobacco Hazards Prevention Act to curb the rising rate of smoking among teenagers.

More than 150 civic groups, including the anti-smoking John Tung Foundation, Consumers' Foundation, and Formosa Cancer Foundation, said the act should be amended in light of the fact that the rate of teen smoking in Taiwan had climbed to 22 percent last year.

Statistics for 2010 show that 8 percent of junior high school students and 15 percent senior high school students smoke.

The groups called for smoking be banned in all indoor public spaces and work places, for more warning messages to be placed on tobacco packaging, and for a ban to be introduced on the display of tobacco products in retail stores.

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• Anti-smoking group urges changes to tobacco regulations  

The John Tung Foundation and other civic groups yesterday made an urgent call for revisions to tobacco regulations aimed at smoking, after studies showed a rising number of young people were picking up the habit.

More than 150 civic groups called for tighter tobacco restrictions that would mitigate the harmful effects of exposure to second-hand smoke and the “excessive marketing and advertisement efforts” by tobacco companies.

About one in five adults in Taiwan smokes cigarettes, a proportion similar to that in Western countries.

However, the foundation said a chilling statistic showed that in the past three years, the proportion of young people who smoked had increased from 6 percent to about 8 percent.

“Taiwan has not increased the cigarette tax in 24 years,” John Tung Foundation president Yau Sea-wain (姚思遠) said. “The lack of action to make cigarettes more expensive is not helping to curb demand for cigarettes.” . . .

The groups said that even though Taiwan signed the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in 2005, which vows to curb cigarette smoking, the government had made few improvements in its laws and implementation to adhere to the treaty.

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• Lifetime Exposure to Cigarette Smoking and the Development of Adult-onset Atopic Dermatitis 

Background Adult-onset atopic dermatitis (AD) has recently been recognized as a distinct disease entity, but its risk factors have not yet been clearly defined. Although gestational and perinatal exposure to tobacco smoking may be associated with the development of classic AD, the association between active/passive smoking and adult-onset AD remains controversial.

Objectives To determine if exposure to smoking, including environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), is associated with the risk of adult-onset AD.

Methods Tobacco smoking and exposure to ETS were measured in a case–control association analysis in 83 patients with physician-diagnosed adult-onset AD and 142 age- and sex-matched controls.

Results Multiple logistic regression analyses showed that, among the potential environmental risk factors, both current and ever smoking were significant risk factors for adult-onset AD [odds ratio (OR) 4·994 and 3·619, respectively], compared with never smoking. Also, packs per year was significantly associated with adult-onset AD (OR 1·058, 95% confidence interval 1·028–1·089), suggesting a lifelong cumulative risk in current smokers. Moreover, nonsmokers with adult-onset AD reported significantly more exposure to ETS.

Conclusions Early and/or current exposure to cigarette smoking may contribute cumulatively to the development of adult-onset AD. Exposure to ETS in childhood is associated with the development of adult-onset AD. Adults should be discouraged from smoking to prevent adult-onset AD in themselves and their family members.

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Taiwan fines Japan tobacco distributors 

Taiwan yesterday fined distributors for Japan Tobacco International (JT International), maker of the Mild Seven brand, for manipulating prices in violation of fair trade law. Thirty-one distributors affiliated with the company were fined a total of Tw$21.9 million (USD 730,000) for "jointly raising prices ... which impacted supply and demand in the tobacco market," said the Fair Trade Commission. "The commission urges suppliers in all sectors to refrain from such joint [price-fixing] activities at a time of inflation, or risk heavy penalty," it said in a statement. The distributors met frequently in early 2010 to fix prices for tobacco products, which violated fair competition in the market

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