Tobacco.org

公共卫生专家建议：室内公共场所应全面禁烟 

日前，在新探健康发展中心召开的“加速实现100%无烟环境”研讨会上，中国疾控中心流行病学首席专家曾光研究员、首都医科大学崔小波教授等多位公共卫生专家建议，在学校、网吧、餐馆、机场等一切室内公共场所和工作场所全面禁止吸烟。

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云南肺癌发病率全国最高 吸烟成主要病因 

中新社昆明六月二十六日电 (张丹)云南省肿瘤医院副院长黄云超二十六日在接受记者采访时表示，目前云南省肺癌平均发病率居全国首位，吸烟和被动吸烟是导致肺癌的最重要原因。

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Smoking is nicotine addiction - It's a bad habit  

Do you realise that smoking lowers your immunity to illness and is bad for your health? You perhaps started smoking because you thought it was fashionable and macho! Maybe you had planned to stop burning your money but found that when you were stressed, cigarettes helped. Now you continue smoking because you can't help yourself. You not only have a conditioned response (a habit) to smoke when you are doing certain things, but you suspect that you are addicted to nicotine! . . .

When you quit, you will be assailed by cravings and urges to smoke again. Help is available from the Jamaica Cancer Society - 927 4265 and the Jamaica Coalition on Tobacco Control - 926 4378. There are physicians who are trained to help you stop smoking, like Dr Aldyth Buckland who provided much of the information for this article. She can be contacted at aldyth_buckland@yahoo.com. More help can be found at www.whyquit.com.

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Editorial: Smokers, pay up 

Clearly, as Gov. Charlie Crist said recently in considering the tobacco tax, the health benefits of hiking the cigarette tax by $1 a pack outweigh the political disadvantages of raising taxes. Indeed, the political advantages of this tax might be duly noted by employers who pay a share of the cost in not only health-insurance benefits but also the loss of productivity and absenteeism due to smoking-related illnesses of their work forces.

However, while enacting the new cigarette tax makes sense as a way of encouraging Floridians to stop smoking, it is not a broad-based tax. It falls mostly on the 2 million smokers and not the other 16 million residents.

The state should continue to look for ways to grow our tax base . . .

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Smoking habit gets more costly  

But while Kelley and countless other smokers are sick of paying more for cigarettes, health groups are celebrating.

Those groups helped convince state lawmakers and Gov. Charlie Crist this spring to boost taxes on cigarettes and smokeless tobacco -- thanks, in large part, to the expectation that the increased taxes will bring in about $946 million during the coming year for the cash-strapped state.

Brenda Olsen, an American Lung Association official who has long worked on tobacco issues in Florida, said the tax increases particularly will help prevent smoking by teens, who are sensitive to higher prices.

"What we've seen in other states around the country, historically, is it's the biggest deterrent to youths ever starting to smoke," Olsen said.

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New Primary Care Approach Boosts Referrals To NHS Stop Smoking Services By 49% 

The Department of Health is rolling out a new systems-based approach to improve stop smoking interventions in primary care. This new approach has increased referrals to local NHS Stop Smoking services by up to 49% in pilot areas.

People who are referred to local NHS Stop Smoking Services are up to four times more likely to quit.

The new approach was developed to ensure stop smoking interventions by healthcare professionals are routine and systematic, providing a tailored and consistent approach to patient referral. It will be rolled out to practices over the next few months by trained local NHS Stop Smoking Service advisers who will support its implementation in local primary care settings.

The approach recognises smoking as a key clinical issue requiring treatment or referral to a specialist, joining standard issues such as hypertension or high cholesterol.

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Using the Internet to help young smokers quit 

The University of Illinois at Chicago is leading a $2.9 million National Cancer Institute project to increase demand for evidence-based, Internet-based smoking cessation treatment among young adults.

"Even though many young adults think about quitting and actually want to stop smoking, they tend not to use what we know works -- evidence-based approaches to quitting," said psychology professor Robin Mermelstein, director of UIC's Institute for Health Research and Policy and principal investigator of the five-year study.

Young adults between the ages of 18 and 24 have the highest rates of smoking compared to any other age group, but they have among the lowest rates of quitting, according to Mermelstein.

A multidisciplinary team of investigators from UIC, the University of Iowa and the American Legacy Foundation will work with GDS&M Idea City advertising agency to develop interactive, Internet-based ads and evaluate what messages motivate young smokers to use the evidence-based stop smoking program www.BecomeAnEx.org.

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Intensive in-hospital support doubles likelihood of smoking cessation in heart patients 

Patients admitted to hospital with coronary artery disease are twice as likely to quit smoking after receiving intensive smoking cessation support compared to minimal support, found a new study in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) http://www.cmaj.ca/press/pg1297.pdf.

The study, a randomized clinical trial, compared intensive intervention with minimal intervention and found that patients admitted for open heart surgery (coronary artery bypass grafts) had significantly higher long-term abstinence rates at 1 year compared with those admitted for heart attacks (acute myocardial infarctions.)

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Anti-Smoking Drugs Get FDA 'Black-Box' Warning  

Two drugs prescribed to help people quit smoking, Chantix and Zyban, will now carry "black-box" warnings on the potential risks of psychiatric problems, including depression and suicidal thoughts, U.S. health officials said Wednesday.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it was mandating the black-box warnings, the strictest possible, based on reports to the agency of these side effects and on a review of clinical trials and scientific literature.

"We are requiring the manufacturers of the smoking-cessation drugs Chantix and Zyban to add a new boxed warning highlighting the risk of serious mental health symptoms with use of these products," Dr. Curt Rosebraugh, director of the FDA's Office of Drug Evaluation II, said during a Wednesday teleconference.

The agency's review found that some people who used Chantix (varenicline) and Zyban (bupropion) experienced unusual changes in behavior, became depressed, or had their depression worsen and had thoughts of suicide or dying, the FDA said.

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How Much Is Life Worth: Cetuximab, Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer, and the $440 Billion Question  

The spiraling cost of cancer care, in particular the cost of cancer therapeutics that achieve only marginal benefits, is under increasing scrutiny. Although health-care professionals avoid putting a value on a life, our limited resources require that society address what counts as a benefit, the extent to which cost should factor in deliberations, and who should be involved in these decisions. Professional societies, such as the American Society of Clinical Oncology, government agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration, and insurance companies should be involved. However, no segment of society is better qualified to address these issues than the oncology community. Oncologists must offer clear guidance for the conduct of research, interpretation of results, and prescription of chemotherapies. We review recent drug approvals and clinical trials and comment on their relevance to the issue of the spiraling cost of oncology therapeutics. We suggest some standards that would serve as a starting point for addressing these issues.

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• Abbott slams 'trivial' smoking ban  

Coalition frontbencher Tony Abbott says New South Wales is playing nanny state politics with its ban on smoking in cars when children are present.

The former federal health minister has told a public health debate at Sydney University that smoking in front of children is a trivial issue and states should not intervene. . . .

"I was a child that was regularly imprisoned in a car with heavy smokers," he said.

"My parents both smoked heavily when I was a kid. Now has it done me any harm?

"You be the judge... maybe I would have been six foot six and I would have had much greater intelligence, who knows? . . .

"I personally would not get hung up on something, in my view, as trivial as smoking while the kids are in the car."

Long time anti-smoking campaigner Professor Mike Daube from Curtin University disagrees.

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Popular Stop-Smoking Drugs to Carry Mental Health Risk Warnings 

Reports of behavioral changes, depressed mood, agitation, hostility and suicidal thoughts and behavior associated with use of the drugs have been submitted to the FDA's adverse event reporting system.

Throughout the marketing history of the drugs, there have been 98 suicides and 188 attempted suicides in varenicline users and 14 suicides and 17 attempted suicides in buproprion users, the agency reported.

The FDA is not recommending discontinuation of the medications, which have been shown effective for quitting smoking, according to Dr. Curtis Rosebraugh, director of the agency's Office of Drug Evaluation II.

But the FDA is recommending that clinicians monitor their patients for neuropsychiatric symptoms after initiating treatment.

The FDA has been conducting a safety review of varenicline since receiving preliminary reports of problems in 2007.

Rosebraugh said it was somewhat surprising that a similar safety signal turned up for buproprion.

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MedlinePlus Medical Encyclopedia: Nicotine withdrawal 

Nicotine withdrawal involves irritability, headache, and craving for cigarettes or other sources of nicotine. These symptoms occur when a nicotine-dependent individual suddenly stops smoking or using tobacco, or cuts back on the number of cigarettes or tobacco products used.

Almost all people who try to quit have some form of nicotine withdrawal. Generally, people who smoked the longest or smoked a greater number of cigarettes each day are more likely to have withdrawal symptoms.

People who are regular smokers tend to have particularly strong cravings and worsening of withdrawal symptoms at certain times, places, or situations associated with smoking.

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• Both good/bad movie characters who smoke influence teens to do the same 

Dartmouth researchers have determined that movie characters who smoke, regardless of whether they are "good guys" or "bad guys," influence teens to try smoking. The study, published in the July 2009 issue of the journal Pediatrics, is titled "Adolescent Smoking: Who Matters More, Good Guys or Bad Guys?"

"Previous studies have confirmed a link between smoking in movies and the initiation of smoking by adolescents, and we wanted to dig deeper into the data to see if the type of character who is smoking matters. Is it 'good guys' or 'bad guys' that have more of an influence?" said Susanne Tanski, the lead author on the study, and an assistant professor of pediatrics at Dartmouth Medical School. "It's true that 'bad guys' are more often smokers in the movies, but there really are not that many 'bad guys' compared to 'good guys'. Episode for episode, youth who saw negative character smoking were more likely to start smoking, but since overall there is so much more exposure to 'good guy' smoking, the net effect is similar."

The survey also revealed that low-risk teens, based on sensation-seeking behavior, are more strongly influenced by "bad guy" movie smoking. "This suggests that it's alluring for 'good' kids to emulate the 'bad' characters on the movie screen," said Tanksi.

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• VIDEO: Smokers fuming over Florida's cigarette tax hike  

Maria Charlton took a drag on a Kool cigarette just outside the Broward County Courthouse Tuesday, savoring one of her last smokes ever. When the state tax on cigarettes jumps a buck to $1.34 a pack Wednesday, Charlton is going cold turkey.

''I'm not paying a whole more dollar for cigarettes,'' snapped Charlton, 45, of Pembroke Pines. ``It's not worth it to me.''

Smokers like Charlton are feeling picked on lately. The 294 percent increase in the state excise tax follows a 159 percent increase in the federal cigarette tax, from about 39 cents to $1.01 a pack, on April 1. That's in addition to some Big Tobacco companies raising prices by more than 40 cents a pack earlier this year. Now, with the latest hike, smokers will see some of their favorite name-brand smokes costing $5 to $6 or more a pack.

Smokers can no longer dodge the tax by buying cigarettes on an Indian reservation, either. Under the new law, nontribe members buying smokes on an Indian reservation have to pay the full tax.

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