Email
Password
(Forgot Password?)
Conclusion Page 244
While this inquiry was not exhaustive, it has demonstrated beyond doubt the magnitude of tobacco companies’ continuing opposition to WHO tobacco programs. The tobacco companies’ long-secret documents offer a window of insight not only into many of their surreptitious activities, but also into the strategies and attitudes that guide their conduct. To some, these revelations may come only as confirmation of long-held suspicions. To many, however, they will be eye opening.
But the significance of this inquiry may lie less in what it reveals about the past, than in what it suggests for the present and future. As WHO embarks on a global discussion of tobacco and health, and of the proposed Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, this inquiry invites a reassessment of the way WHO and its member states view the global epidemic of tobacco use.
At the most fundamental level, this inquiry confirms that tobacco use is unlike other threats to global health. Infectious diseases do not employ multinational public relations firms. There are no front groups to promote the spread of cholera. Mosquitoes have no lobbyists. The evidence presented here suggests that tobacco is a case unto itself, and that reversing its burden on global health will be not only about understanding addiction and curing disease, but, just as importantly, about overcoming a determined and powerful industry. If this inquiry contributes to that understanding, the committee of experts will have succeeded in its work.
Jump to full article »
In conclusion, in studies carried out in the United States and Sweden we detected an association between use of smokeless tobacco products and risk of fatal myocardial infarction and fatal stroke, which is not readily explained by chance. Confounding and other sources of bias, however, cannot be completely excluded on the basis of available data, although we found no strong evidence for their effect. If the association is real, its public health and clinical implications might be substantial, despite the fact that the magnitude of the excess risk is small. Future research should aim to clarify the mechanisms of effect of smokeless tobacco products on deaths from cardiovascular disease and to elucidate whether a similar effect is present for non-fatal myocardial infarction and non-fatal stroke.
What is already known on this topic Smokeless tobacco products are widely used in many populations An association with risk of cardiovascular disease is plausible
What this study adds This systematic review and meta-analysis provided evidence for an association between use of smokeless products and risk of fatal myocardial infarction and stroke . . .
Executive Director, Smokefree Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh, PA USA 15218
Send response to journal:
Re: Smokeless tobacco is far less hazardous alternative to cigarettes
If the attributable risk estimates for fatal stroke and heart disease found by this study are correct, the overall mortality risk from using smokeless tobacco products would be 4%- 5% of those from cigarette smoking, or 95%-96% lower risk.
As such, this study confirms the findings by Rodu and Godshall http://www.harmreductionjournal.com/content/3/1/37 that cigarette smokers can sharply reduce their mortality risks by switching to smokeless tobacco products.
Unfortunately, the authors of this study failed to acknowledge that smokeless tobacco users face significantly fewer mortality risks for stroke and MI (and overall mortality) than cigarette smokers.
Action Points
* Explain to interested patients that smokeless products such as snuff and chewing tobacco may carry risks for fatal heart attacks and strokes.
* Explain that a study showed that the risks were small but the public health implications may be significant.
The use of smokeless tobacco products was associated with an increased risk for fatal myocardial infarction (MI) and stroke, a meta-analysis found.
For fatal MI, the relative risk associated with ever having used these products was 1.13 (95% CI 1.06 to 1.21), according to Paolo Boffetta, MD, and Kurt Straif, MD, PhD, of the International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon, France. . . .
Primary source: BMJ Source reference: Boffetta P, Straif K "Use of smokeless tobacco and risk of myocardial infarction and stroke: systematic review with meta-analysis"
UNLESS THE courts halt the relentless march of the Nicotine Nazis, the Hamptons fall on the first Monday in August. No more cigs with martinis at Bobby Van's, no brandy and cigars after steak at The Palm.
The bars at your favorite restaurants will be as smoke-free as the dining areas leaving nothing but the house and the beach, and don't bet the house on the beach.
The Suffolk County Legislature banned smoking in bar areas of restaurants as of July 1. . . .
The World Health Organization, the SS of the Nicotine Nazi movement, spent millions on a seven-year study in 12 European countries to prove that passive smoking causes cancer.
It came up empty. No connection between secondhand smoke and cancer. This puts the lie to all the so-called studies on passive smoke and ought to take down all the "No Smoking" signs in restaurants and newsrooms.
But the news media censor this report. And thus Ken Novikoff, on behalf of the restaurant owners, "stipulates" that secondhand smoke causes harm. And argues only the equal protection clause.
And now we have the truth about the anti-smoke fascists. Last week, a federal judge wiped out the entire basis of all this business about the danger of secondhand smoke, a lie that has transformed our culture, from saloons to our homes.
In a devastating 94-page opinion, Judge William Osteen put the cat to the Environmental Protection Agency. These ideological hustlers are responsible for all the madness we've experienced since 1993, when, without a scintilla of evidence, they declared that secondhand smoke causes cancer.
This "finding" created civil war in America. . . .
The EPA was at the ready, helped by Hillary Clinton, whose first edict as First Lady was a no-smoking rule in the White House.
The EPA announced that 3,000 people died every year from secondhand smoke. More people by far die from milk, not to mention bird droppings in national forests.
But the yuppie audience was ready to buy, and the market went through the roof.
In New York, Peter Vallone and Rudy Giuliani banned smoking everywhere but in bars. . . .
In March, the World Health Organization was caught with the lie. It is the SS of the Nicotine Nazis. The WHO ran a multi-million-dollar study dedicated to proving that passive smoke causes cancer. It came up empty.
The media censored that story. If you didn't read it in my column, you don't know it. And now the media do virtually the same with Judge Osteen's opinion.
The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has moved sunbeds (UV tanning beds) up to the highest cancer risk category--group 1--'carcinogenic to humans'. The use of sunlamps and sunbeds was until now classified as "probably carcinogenic to humans" (group 2A). IARC also moved ultraviolet radiation into group 1. These and other findings are revealed in a Special Report in the August edition of The Lancet Oncology, produced by Dr Fatiha El Ghissassi and her colleagues, IARC, Lyon, France, on behalf of the WHO International Agency for Research on Cancer Monograph Working Group.
The authors say: "The use of UV-emitting tanning devices is widespread in many developed countries, especially among young women. A comprehensive meta-analysis concluded that the risk of skin melanoma is increased by 75% when use of tanning devices starts before 30 years of age. Additionally, several case-control studies provide consistent evidence of a positive association between the use of UV-emitting tanning devices and ocular melanoma. Therefore, the Working Group raised the classification of the use of UV-emitting tanning devices to Group 1, 'carcinogenic to humans'." . . .
All types of ionising radiation were also classified as Group 1. This was the first time all these types of radiation were reviewed by one working group during one meeting. Examples of ionising radiation are:
* Radon gas (seeping from soil, rocks, and building materials), which enters the lungs and causes damage (affecting the whole population). The Special Report says that radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer (8--15% of cases) after tobacco smoke
* Plutonium and its decay products, affecting the bones, liver and lungs of plutonium workers.
While examining patterns of DNA modification in lung cancer, a team of international researchers has discovered what they say is a surprising new mechanism. They say that "silencing" of a single gene in lung cancer led to a general impairment in genome-wide changes in cells, contributing to cancer development and progression.
In the January 1, 2009, issue of Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, they also report finding a strong link between modification of the key gene, MTHFR, and tobacco use by lung cancer patients - even if the patient had smoked for a short period of time.
The findings reinforce tobacco's link to lung cancer development, but show that deactivating one specific gene through a process known as hypermethylation causes systemic dysfunction, or hypomethylation, in many genes, said the study's senior investigator, Zdenko Herceg, Ph.D., head of the Epigenetics Group at the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).
This week the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a division of the World Health Organization (WHO), released updated cancer death projections in a call to action, asking the government to help fund cancer prevention and research initiatives and international tobacco control policies. According to the report, the burden of cancer doubled globally between 1975 and 2000, and cancer is expected to become the leading cause of death worldwide in 2010.
"This is a very important issue and does indeed deserve the attention of governments around the world," said Timothy Gardner, M.D., President of the American Heart Association.
The report states that reasons for the growing cancer burden include the adoption in less developed countries of "Western" habits such as tobacco use and high calorie, high-saturated and trans-fat diets.
"These factors are also significant contributors to the global burden of cardiovascular disease," said Gardner. "The IARC's aggressive support of tobacco control is particularly important, as cigarette smoking is the main preventable cause of premature death in the United States, as well as worldwide."
According to a report by the World Health Organisation's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) the disease is now poised to become the leading cause of death worldwide by 2010, overtaking cardiovascular ailments as the number one killer. . . .
The United States, on the other hand, has made a turnaround and is now showing a decline in both disease incidence and death for the first time in a decade.
Again, the reason is not far to see. In the 1980s and 1990s when the US and other western countries came down heavily on smoking, tobacco giants began making major moves towards developing countries. As a result smoking fired up as, subsequently, did lung cancer. It's high time, therefore, that countries like India too initiated aggressive anti-smoking measures. Specifically, we need to urgently commit to a comprehensive tobacco control approach including increased taxes and access to cessation tools and programmes.
Each year on 4 February, WHO joins with the sponsoring International Union Against Cancer to promote ways to ease the global burden of cancer. Preventing cancer and raising quality of life for cancer patients are recurring themes.
Smoke-free policies reduce the exposure of both adults and children, reduce the prevalence of smoking in adults and reduce the risk of heart disease related to smoke exposure. A resulting reduction in the lung cancer burden may well occur as a result of these policies, but relevant evidence will only become available some time in the future. Further, such policies do not negatively affect the restaurant and bar industry. These findings are the latest in a series of reviews and evaluations conducted by an international group of experts convened at the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), in Lyon, France. A summary of their conclusions will be published exclusively online and in the July edition of The Lancet Oncology (TLO).
Smoking bans are an effective way of preventing heart disease, getting cigarette users to quit and protecting children from second-hand smoke, a World Health Organization (WHO) report issued on Monday said.
The report by scientists at the WHO's International Agency for Cancer Research urged more countries to adopt smoking bans in public and at the workplace, saying there was enough evidence to prove they work, without hurting businesses such as restaurants and bars.
Smoke-free policies are reducing heart disease related to smoke exposure, the prevalence of smoking in adults and the exposure of both adults and children to second-hand smoke.
These and other findings are published in a special report of this month's the Lancet Oncology.
The report, by the International Agency for Cancer Research (IARC), also showed that smoke-free policies do not decrease the business activity of the restaurant and bar industry.
Oral and nasal snuff and chewing tobacco increase the risk of certain types of cancer but are probably safer than smoking, according to a review published on Wednesday in the journal Lancet Oncology.
The risk of throat and pancreatic cancer is roughly 60 percent higher among users of smokeless tobacco products compared with non-users, it found.
Investigators in the United States and Asia also found a 260 percent increase in the risk of mouth cancer among smokeless tobacco users, compared with non-users, but a similar European investigation found no added risk, it said.
Smoke-free policies are extremely effective at reducing smoking rates, exposure to secondhand smoke, and even smoking-related heart disease, new research shows.
The report, by an International Agency for Cancer Research working group, also found smoke-free rules don't affect business in restaurants or bars.