Jump to full article: Trinidad Express (tt), 2008-12-24
Author: Darryl Heeralal
Intro: Prof Paluri Murti, an expert on oral cancer, recently delivered a lecture titled "I Love Tobacco. Is it Harmful to my Mouth?"
The answer, he said, is yes.
In an interview with the Express, Murti said that 90 per cent of oral cancer victims develop it because of tobacco use.
The Indian-born professor of oral pathology is the director of the University of the West Indies' Dental School, and was part of a renowned group of international researchers who pioneered research in India on oral cancer and pre-cancerous lesions in relation to tobacco usage. . . .
Smokers in this country puff over half a billion cigarettes every year, ranking Trinidad and Tobago as one of the top tobacco consumers worldwide.
And joining the over quarter million adults who light up on average five times a day are thousands of schoolchildren between 13 and 15.
A Global Youth Tobacco Survey in 2004 ranked T&T as having the fourth highest smoking prevalence in the age group. About 40 per cent of young people are also exposed to second-hand smoke, called passive smoking at home.
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